A Máfia dos Tigres

Filmed over the course of several years by clearly passionate and committed filmmakers, this superb series takes many gripping twists and turns. I watched for seven hours straight, only breaking to Google every now and then.

Although it's about the exotic animal business in the USA, it actually has multiple layers of interwoven themes.

Populated by flawed humans interacting with magnificent animals, nobody is presented as a pure goodie or a baddie - every real-life character has elements of both, presented in such an insightful way that you'll find your opinions and loyalties shifting as you get carried along on this interesting journey.

Perfectly paced, great soundtrack, interesting bonus to have the main protagonist's "own" music featured. I finished this feeling educated and entertained, sad and conflicted, curious and fascinated.

It's a highly recommended experience.

...but soon wears off. To be honest after a while I just continued to watch it because I wanted to see how it ends, it wasn't really that entertaining anymore. What also leaves a somewhat sour taste in my mouth is that a large part of the appeal of the series is based on the fact that you don't really know how much of what is being said by the different characters is true or not, and then when you dig a little bit deeper you also start to wonder where and when the filmmakers are maybe not telling the whole story anymore. In my opinion definitely not worth to be called a documentary. Still, as mentioned in the beginning, it's difficult to stop watching once you started, in that regard it is much like a bag of chips: the first couple of hands you grab seem to be delicious, after a while you are not continuing because it tastes good but because it's just the right combination of fat, carbs and salt to please a prehistoric part of your brain, and after you finished emptying the whole bag, you pretty quickly realize that the whole experience just wasn't worth it.

Back in 2008 I worked for Joe Exotic for about 9 months, 4 of which were on the road and maybe 5 at the animal park. I've seen the doc and in my experience working with him and being at the park I really don't have anything bad to say about the guy based on what I lived personally being around the whole thing

there's obviously some sensationalism involved in the doc, some things are accurate and some things aren't but that's the nature of these kind of things.

This documentary really tells you the story of a fued between big cat breeders doing it all for the money and fame and big cat rescuers.

Definitely worth watching and I really hope this docuserie make Americans realise that cub petting ain't cool as apparently, there are between 5k - 10k big cats living in the USA as pets.

Interesting series on many levels, but everyone featured is a pathological liar and experienced various mental illnesses. The truth means nothing to these people, so it will never be found. Protecting the animals is the only thing we should care about here. The actual "animals" are the featured people: Baskin, Antle and Schreibvogel. Sick, awful human beings.