During the first act of the wholly necessary “extreme” action sequel “xXx: Return Of Xander Cage,” human/boulder hybrid Vin Diesel’s character requests to put together his own team of badasses in order to go after a MacGuffin thingamajig. Of course, this leads to a series of tongue-in-cheek sequences where we meet members of the team one-by-one. One of these scenes opens on an assassin in the African wilderness, presumably about to shoot a lion. But wait, there’s a twist: It turns out that she’s actually there to save the lion’s life, as she shoots a stereotypical rich, white, and entitled trophy hunter in the leg, allowing the lion to devour the hunter alive.
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This scene, not in a subversive indie but in a mainstream Hollywood actioner that’s supposed to play things safe, is set up to have the audience instantly sympathize with the assassin. And it seems to have worked, since during the screening I attended, the moment when the hunter gets shot and eaten earned the heartiest cheers from the audience, in a movie where friggin’ motorcycles turn into water-skis. That’s how much the general public hates trophy hunters. Yes, the senseless 2015 killing of Cecil the lion put a big public-opinion bullseye on trophy hunters, but it’s not like they were super-popular beforehand.
This hatred makes the jobs of co-directors Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz equally hard and commendable, since they attempt to bring a refreshingly even-handed study of the many disadvantages and, gulp, possible advantages of trophy-hunting with their intellectually engaging, at times heartbreaking, and beautifully shot documentary, “Trophy.” The doc does an admirable job of giving pretty much equal screen time to hunters, conservationists, and other experts on all sides of the argument, even though it becomes pretty clear early on where the directors stand as far as their personal feelings on the subject are concerned.
Clusiau and Schwarz never shy away from showing the killings of the animals, some of which are seriously in danger of extinction, in brutal graphic detail. They linger on close-ups of rhinos, hippos, and lions as they writhe and squeal in pain while white rich “hunters” who paid upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars to kill the defenseless animal close in for the headshot. This is a film that will no doubt disturb animal lovers, but nevertheless should be necessary viewing for us to grasp the full extent of the brutality that goes into such hunts. It’s one thing to get upset at photographs of these hunters grinning at the lens with their feet on the carcasses of the animals; it’s another to have your blood boil as you listen to them scream for dear life for minutes that feel like days until they’re put out of their misery.
The frequent superimposed text over beautifully shot vistas of South African wildlife informs us of how each of the wild animals being hunted are decreasing in numbers, and a haunting bird’s-eye-view shot of an elephant lying dead in the middle of a desolate landscape is a perfect example of a picture speaking a thousand words. Of course, their obvious thoughts on the issue doesn’t stop Clusiau and Schwarz from trying to understand all aspects of trophy hunting. To be honest, the film casts a bit too wide of a net as it delves into the various hunting laws, politics, and cultures in South Africa. It tries to cover hunting auctions where people bet on the right to kill the animals, trials about the legalization of the selling of rhino horns, a conservationist police officer’s hunt for poachers, etc. It even briefly covers the taxidermists who stuff the animals for display at whichever rich dude’s trophy room.
Because of this wide-scale approach, some of the subjects don’t get the attention they deserve, which might leave the audience dissatisfied and asking for more. An edit that excised some of the less important stories, especially those that are about current laws and politics that will surely date the film while focusing on the more universal aspects of the issue, could have resulted in a more cohesive experience. One of those stories is about John Hume, a passionate rhino conservationist who wants to breed rhinos he owns on his land as an attempt to stave off the species’ extinction.
The selling of rhino horns has recently become illegal in South Africa, so the doc follows Hume’s struggle with the court system to make it legal, so he can fund his breeding program by selling the horns to countries where people still believe they have health benefits, even though modern science has disproven this a long time ago. Hume’s passion is understandable, yet the doc does an admirable job of also showing the argument from the other side, stating that the rhinos should roam free, and should not be under the control of one person who authorities think seeks to profit off them. Yet if these majestic animals are set free in the wild, Hume claims that they will most likely be hunted by poachers and will become extinct.
Clusiau and Schwarz apply a similar even-handed approach to Phillip Glass, an American trophy hunter. Glass is a creationist who believes that God gave man dominion over all animals, so of course it’s his religious duty to pay ungodly amounts of money for the privilege of shooting these animals behind a safe space while surrounded by experts who hold his hand the whole way through. How brave. The doc lets Glass talk about his passion for hunting without any dramatic embellishments to make him look like a horrible person. He manages to achieve this simply by talking to the camera.
Behind the ridiculous “kick-ass hunter” cosplay and a vapid aura of “I’m doing this for conservationism” talking points, we see a profoundly insecure man, dedicated to making his late hunter pappy proud by killing all of the “big five”: lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard, and rhino. If Glass’ motivation for being in “Trophy” was so he would get to tell his side of the story without any bias, the directors certainly give him that chance, but it turns out to be his downfall.
As scattershot and unevenly paced as “Trophy” can be at times, and as much as some of the political content might make it feel dated in about a year’s time, it’s nevertheless an important doc for animal lovers to get a fairly complete picture of this controversial “sport.” [B]
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