Movie Review: Hollywood Safari (1997) directed by Henri Charr
Two teenagers sneak away from a summer camp near Cedar Creek, California* to look at some better scenery. This is spoiled when one of them is mauled by a mountain lion. Two days later, a lioness named Kensho escapes from a poorly-secured trailer owned by “Hollywood Safari”, a family-owned animal trainer operation. Kensho is promptly mistaken for the attacker and captured by the sheriff’s department. Now the family must prove their animal’s innocence before she is wrongfully destroyed!
Good: There’s some nice scenery.
Less Good: This is the sort of story where all the characters must be simpletons to make the plot work. We can forgive the teenagers at the beginning because, well, teenagers who had no particular reason to think a crazed mountain lion was in the area. But then the Hollywood Safari employees fail to properly secure Kensho’s trailer, then don’t immediately check to make sure their animals are safe after a highway accident caused by a possibly drunk jackass driver.
Sheriff Todd (Kenneth Tigar) knows that Deputy Rogers (John Savage) is trigger-happy, not good at following orders, and is after his job. But he still leaves Rogers in charge while the Sheriff is out of town. Rogers immediately turns into a tinpot dictator, ordering the immediate execution of Kensho without waiting for any proof she’s the killer, bullying animal control officers, and completely disregarding anything the Hollywood Safari folks have to say. When Rookie McLean (Benjamin King) meekly suggests that maybe they should do things by the book, Rogers threatens his job.
Mom (Debby Boone) gets arrested for delaying the execution, the sons go out to find the real culprit with evidence stolen from the police, and Dad has no luck finding a rational person to talk to Deputy Rogers. Plus, it turns out the mountain lion was turned killer by incompetent poachers. It’s a good thing Muddy the dog is there to fix everything!
Bafflingly, this movie made enough money to spawn a short-lived TV spinoff series.
Content note: While the lion attack looks staged to the point even small viewers should have no problems, the aftermath is shown and a bit gory. There’s some fisticuffs late in the movie. Kensho is threatened by guns and lethal injection, and presumably the guilty mountain lion is euthanized after the story is over.
Overall: A pretty bad movie. Skip unless it’s a part of your childhood nostalgia or you’re looking for the tiny role played by Don “the Dragon” Wilson.
*This may or may not be the Cedar Creek, California from the 1995 film Outbreak.
