Maneater

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.

Gary Busey leads in this, no don't go!

Anyway if you're still there Gary Busey leads in this Scyfy channel-esque movie about a small town that falls under siege from an escaped Bengal tiger.

You know drill, a panicked Sherriff, an authority figure who wants it all kept quiet because they're up for re-election and over confident rednecks looking to make a name for themselves.

Every cliche in the book can be found right here in Maneater, but despite this it's not actually the worst.

Don't get me wrong this is hardly enjoyable viewing but I've seen considerably worse. Busey is a lot less manic than usual and is more bearable, the sfx for the tiger are better than you'd assume and though the plot has facets that make little to no sense it has its redeeming features if you look carefully enough.

Dumb fun? Meh, honestly it's just dumb but it's essentially what you should expect going in. Want a decent tiger movie? Watch Burning Bright (2010) instead.

The Good:

Visually better than you'd expect

The Bad:

Cliched to hell and back

Certain elements don't make a vast amount of sense

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.

Maneater (2007)

** (out of 4)

Sci-Fi Channel movie is yet another Jaws rip, although this one has a few things going for it. A giant tiger is eating people in an Appalachian Mountains town so the sheriff (Gary Busey) and a bounty hunter (Ian D. Clark) try to track it down and kill it. Both of these characters are directly out of the Jaws handbook but thankfully both actors give very good performances so this weakness is the script can be overlooked. The story itself is another story as it's very weak and doesn't really offer anything new that we haven't seen countless times before. The one added storyline is a young boy who seems to have a connection with this tiger but this here comes off very forced and silly. The tiger used was real except for a few scenes where a CGI one was used.

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