Maneater

With all the beatings I've dished out to the Sci Fi Channel for its horrible movies, I felt the need to finally post something a little upbeat.

Granted, MANEATER is no classic. But it's not a stinker in the typical Sci Fi Channel sense, either. There's a reasonable script. A few eccentric performances. And a director, Gary Yates, who realizes that CGI is not the best way to convey tension. In fact, he uses a real tiger to play...are you ready for it?...a real tiger. Sheer genius, especially when he has the good sense to hide it for the majority of the picture.

Of course, there's also Gary Busey, looking like he wandered off an accident scene, his hair askew, his suite ill-fitting (the same suit he wears for the entire film). He is truly a wonder to behold. It seems like he's The film, however, belongs to Ian D. Clark, who plays a big game hunter on the trail of the titular beast. He creeps through the underbrush spouting gibberish that wouldn't sound out of place in a martial arts movie, a Buddhist monk with a shotgun bloodlust.

Goofy fun.

Maneater is the kind of movie that seems to start with the right idea but soon slinks away in reverse, as if apologizing for existing. There's a loose tiger, yes, but it acts with the timidity of an insecure extra. Instead of spectacle, what unfolds is a long and fruitless wait-like a circus tent set up, but the lion never shows. The plot even rehearses a greatest hits of disaster cinema: a small town, a local festival, sensationalist journalists, a mysterious hunter, a rigid sheriff, and a weird kid with a spiritual connection to the beast. But it all feels like window dressing-a suspense of "almost," an action of "maybe," a tension of "later." And when that "later" finally arrives, we're already emotionally checked out.

The tiger, which should be the star, is filmed like a state secret. The camera hides in leaves, branches, cowardly POV shots-the predator is more heard than seen, more rumor than presence. And while this spares the film from disastrous CGI, it only reinforces its narrative cowardice. The creature attacks as if following a serial killer's manual-ripping limbs, scattering body parts-but without the heat of savagery. Everything feels procedural, almost administrative. There are pathetic attempts to instill fear, like the scene where a journalist tries to lure the beast with bait-an unlicensed Jaws-cage-sequence knockoff. But all we get is a hard cut to an already bloodied scene. No attack, no climax, just silence and shocked extras.

Sheriff Grady Barnes, played by Gary Busey (still nursing a hangover from his more notable roles), carries the plot with the fixed gaze of someone clearly cast in a different movie. The town he tries to protect has no charm, identity, or emotional geography-it's just backdrop, generic forest with slapped-on signs. As for the hunter, James Graham, he sports a Poirot-worthy mustache but can't even solve a crossword, let alone the mystery of the beast. And the boy, Roy-who seems to be rehearsing some Carrie-esque suburban mystique-never evolves beyond a sketch. In theory, he embodies the sheriff's dead son; in practice, he's just another weak link between two characters who never share real emotional weight.

In the end, the beast does attack-but only on the clock. The final minutes unfold in a roadside convenience store, with explosions, gasoline, and a whole lot of noise for very little impact. Maneater tries to be the kind of movie that survives on concept alone: "What if Jaws, but with a tiger?" But it forgets that a good concept is nothing without execution that bites. There are no scares, no bold choices, not even glorious mistakes. The film is afraid of its own roar. If there's any consolation, it might be in the cinematography-which, surprise, has color. The forest is green, the lighting decent, the festival poor but quaint. But that's not enough. I'd take a festival of cheesy CGI and digital blood with some ambition over this domesticated danger. It's a movie that behaves like a pedigree-less beast, caged in the ditch of near-cinema.

Well, technically and grammatically speaking, a more accurate review title would be: "Gary Busy vs. A tiger IN THE woods", but I think we can all agree that wouldn't be as eye-catching, right? "Maneater" was released - in my country, at least - in a DVD series together with a bunch of other creature-features. This one is about a tiger, but there's an entire zoo appearing in the complete collection, including an octopus, bees, spiders, a crocodile, a bear, snakes, and monkeys. None of them are truly great, obviously, but I have yet to encounter a title in the series that didn't entertain me.

Same goes for "Maneater", in fact, as it provided me with an hour and a half of undemanding and straightforward fun; - nothing more but also nothing less. The plot is as standard as can be. Gary Busy is the sheriff of a quiet little town where normally nothing ever happens, except for now, since there's a big hungry Bengal tiger on the loose in the nearby woods. The animal escaped from its cage after a transporting accident, and four half-eaten bodies and a whole lot of "That's impossible" dialogues later, the town is overrun by media clowns, overly confident hunters, and military men. Ah yes, in good old "Jaws" tradition, there's also the annual town parade taking place!

Busey carries the film without any effort, the tiger looks realistic enough (although it appears to be sometimes massive and sometimes normal-sized), and there aren't too many dull moments. The sub plot suggesting a spiritual connection between the tiger and a strict Catholic raised boy was totally unnecessary, though. The attack-sequences are rather weak, and so is the ending. Don't expect an extended or spectacularly heroic "man vs animal" end-battle, is all I'm saying.

Nothing to say about this film actually... It is boring, slow, predictable and so on and so on with negativity. The story is very lame, a tiger escapes his cage, due to road accident and he "befriended" with a little loser kid with imaginary friends... whose mother is a religious fanatic, I don't find this interesting. The killings in the film... well... well done! As expected, because filmmakers wanted to show that only. But fat sheriff's (Gary Busey) question "How come that tiger take out two heavily armed men?" Really! How?!?! How the f*ck he did that!??!?! The only thing I like about this film is Gary Busey, I really like that guy... even here, as a slow, monotone, gruff voiced sheriff, who looks like he don't give a flying f**k about his little town. And of course, I love tigers and that's because I gave it 4 out of 10. However... don't watch it, or better watch it... just to put you out of your insomnia.

So yes, it's called Maneater, which is dodgy, and yes it looks as if it was shot with a budget of about $12.50, and yes it's clichéd and cheesy, but it was about a million times better than I was expecting it to be.

Gary Busey plays Sheriff Grady Barnes, who is the main main character (yeah, double "main", there's a few, they can't decide which to follow). There's a tiger (just a regular tiger, which surprised me, not like, 500 kilo, 10 metre long killing machine, just a Bengal) loose in his hick-town, and they don't take too kindly to tigers 'round these parts. Seriously though, it's an actual tiger, no CG, not even a puppet, it's a genuine freaking tiger. The acting was much better than I thought it'd be, the most terrible was just from the red-shirts, who basically don't even count. The setting was believable and the characters were bearable.

That is not however to say, that the movie was good, or even remotely interesting for that matter. I say it was about a million times better than I thought it was, but I had it pegged as bad as it was, then a whole lot worse. At the end of the day it's just another film that seemed to have been made for the sake of being made. Gary Busey's usual wild charisma was noticeable, literally in only a single line. And that's pretty much it.

There's an evil Christian mother, but she's not that evil. I mean, compare her to the bitch from Carrie and she's like mother-of-the-year award material, she just doesn't let her son go to school or play make-believe games, they had room to make her big-bad, but didn't. Then there was her son, who has some bizarre connection to the tiger, he sleep walks, he's a traumatised little kid, so of course he must be twisted, right? No wrong, no Michael Myers secreted away here. Ah, and that British hunter, a foreigner! Surely he is the human menace! No? He's not? Oh, just another guy who gets a whole lot of screen time but does nothing? Yeah, figured.

So, if someone told me they wanted to watch it, I probably wouldn't go so far as to kill them for even suggesting such a thing, but I'd probably leave the room.

-Gimly