Amore in safari

The story was thin but that's not rare for Hallmark movies. The lead male actor was neither attractive nor a good actor and that was the main problem for me. There was no romantic energy in this film at all and I've seen Chabert strike sparks with a plethora of male leads. That bit of poor casting really cost this film.

The animals, the scenery, and the South African cast were wonderful. In fact.

If this were a travel documentary it would be worthy of all the praise other reviewers have given it. South Africa was wonderful. Casting was great. I was happy to see Britanny Bristow getting bigger parts. She is really good. The only problem is this was NOT a travel movie but was supposed to be a Romance. The romantic leads were well paired, but the love scenes were void of emotion or "fireworks". It had the potential for 10 stars but without the romance it only earned 5.

Beautiful location, gorgeous shots of animals and vistas, gentle romantic storyline with well casted main characters and the most wonderful singing by Cape Town youth choir as a finale. Would love to have the sountrack.

Kira Slater (Lacey Chabert) is busy making websites from a Chicago office. She goes to South Africa to the reading of his beloved uncle's will although she hadn't seen him for a long while. To the shock of everybody, he left his safari reserve to her even though she hadn't been there since childhood. Tom Anderson is the head ranger and Ally Botsman is a ranger. Lwazi is the manager. Kira immediately gets an offer from a cookie cutter resort corporation. Tom is desperate to keep Kira from selling and decides to make her fall in love with him. It doesn't help that she has a boyfriend back in Chicago and she only wants to go home.

The only cool thing is the location. The scheme is very high school. The romance is nothing special. I love Lacey but the guy is a dud. He's more background actor than leading man. There is no heat and it fails in all the rom-com tropes. I don't understand the advantage of holding back the stepsiblings relationship. This movie is best on safari. I want the animals. I want more animals. I want the actors with the animals although they don't get much interactions. It's great to see the safari although it's not the level of a modern nature film. The romance isn't much. This is location, location, location.

She said at the beginning of the movie that she visited the reserve when she was five and then again when she was fourteen. Later on in the movie she said she fed the elephant when she was there at 10 years old.