'HATARI!'......HANGIN' WITH THE GUYS, A GAL, RHINOS 'N GIRAFFES.......

Hatari! (1962)    This may be the only movie we love that wanders aimlessly for 2 hours and 40 minutes without so much as a trace of any narrative drive........

            No sane filmmaker would create a movie like this intentionally.........unless they were depending on enormous good will from an audience.

           Producer-director Howard Hawks, the master of male bonding, of films about people joined in deep friendship to complete a daunting task together, knew his central theme was a crowd pleaser.

            And 'Hatari!', for all the slackness of its construction, stands as the purest evocation of  a Howard Hawks film ........ in which the real story becomes the grace-under-pressure camaraderie of men challenged as a group.

             Everything we've read about the making of this film confirms the end results.........it plays like they were making it up as they went along.......because they pretty much did make it up as they went along.....

               We can't explain it with any rationality, but watching this movie duplicates the experience of hanging out in a bar with a group of your closest friends.  Random laughs, competitive but friendly arguing and banter........and everyone knowing that they've got each other's backs when the going gets tough.......

                So how does Hawks manage to entrance us.......even with his movie's lackadaisical pace and virtually non-existent plot?

                With rhinos, giraffes and monkeys.......oh my.

                 Not to mention ostriches, hyenas and zebras......oh my.

                 And no less than John Wayne.......leading a bunch of international rough 'n tumble young guys on wild motorized safaris through stunning Tanganyika locations. Their common goal:  to capture all these animals for a zoo and literally bring 'em back alive.....

                 That's the entire movie right there.........interrupted only by international super-cutie Elsa Martinelli, playing a photographer sent by the zoo to document it all.  Elsa wastes no time falling for the taciturn-but-hiding-a-heart-of-gold Wayne.......accomplishing all this in between the randomly arranged scenes of animal hunts and relaxing evenings with the rest of gang.

                  The animal capture sequences still thrill and amaze.....(you can see Spielberg paying tribute to them with his bravura dinosaur safari-chase in "The Lost World" ).....and the chemistry of the assembled easy-to-like cast carries the rest of the movie along......

                 And before you know it, the movie's quickly eaten up its 157 minutes........(it practically leaves you longing for a sequel about the funny odd-coupling of the lumbering irascible Wayne and the live-wire, hot tempered Martinelli.)

                  Howard Hawks felt he more than deserved all the expected criticism about 'Hatari's complete lack of plot.......but sorry, we love everything about this movie......(especially the dialogue, stretched out to consist of the characters always feigning denseness about something just explained to them......(as in....."....what are you talkin' about? Make sense!')
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                 Like Hawks, we have no defense for 'Hatari!'......but every so often, we want to just soak up the 'friendly bar' atmosphere of this movie.......and enjoy the company of the nicest bunch of cinematic folks you could meet.  (as well the baby elephants and the pissed off ostriches...) 4 & 1/2 stars (****1/2),