White Hunter, Black Heart (1990)

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Clint Eastwood tries acting out of his normal character in this movie, being as verbose as possible. Not knowing how director John Huston looked or sounded like, I cannot say how well Eastwood portrayed him, but Eastwood simply looked like Eastwood doing a lot of talking for a change.The plot has Huston in Britain, talking some backers into having a movie set in Africa actually located in Africa, rather than on unconvincing studio backdrops as had been done in the past. Then Huston is in Africa, having a run-in with a hotel manager and several other people, and worse yet, showing little interest in actually making the movie, but strongly desiring to shoot an elephant instead. As the title implies, the attempt to shoot the elephant winds up going badly.So what went wrong? Basically, the story moves slowly, and we don't really understand Huston or his motives. Why fight to have a movie set in an exotic location, and then show little interest in making this movie once there? There seems to be no real point to the story, and we feel dissatisfied in the end.

Perhaps the greatest treat that can be found in Clint Eastwood's 1990 film "White Hunter Black Heart", a fictionalized account of the pre-production phase of the 1951 classic "The African Queen", is Eastwood's leading performance. His trademark acting style is usually stereotyped as the tough guy persona; he squints a lot and speaks only when he has to. An act of violence would usually suffice instead. But here we have Eastwood in rare form, showing us a side that we seldom see in his movies.The film opens with a man riding quickly on horseback over a British estate, his face obscured by a riding helmet. We are given some brief narration by Pete Verrill (played by Jeff Fahey and based on screenwriter Peter Viertel), who is flying in to see this masked rider. Verrill is the extension of the audience; he is our eyes and ears as he works alongside Eastwood's character to develop the film that would be known as "The African Queen". Eastwood plays John Wilson, a thinly disguised version of iconic director/actor John Huston. Introducing his character on horseback is a way we've come to recognize Eastwood in films, but the way he acts for the rest of the picture is anything but what we would normally expect from him.Wilson, despite staying at his friend's estate, is down and out and deeply in debt. Verrill is here to get the creative wheels flowing again, helping to finish the script for "The African Trader" (the name given to the film within the film), however Wilson only seems interested in going to Africa to hunt elephants; the picture is more of an afterthought. Viertel wrote the book this film was based on, which in turn was based on his experiences with Huston while making "The African Queen". Viertel also had a hand in the screenplay for this film.Now that I've gotten some of the plot out of the way, let me get back to Eastwood's performance. He nails Huston's distinctive speech pattern and way of presenting himself. It is a rare sight to see Eastwood play such a flamboyant character, a suave and sophisticated gentleman who whips people into shape with long monologues and anecdotes instead of his fists, with one exception that also plays against audience expectations. I honestly can't think of another film where he has so much dialogue.Despite this spectacular leading performance, the film is flawed by its overall ambition. It is as if Eastwood the director, after the acclaim of his previous biopic "Bird", had finally decided that he was an auteur. You have a film that wants to take on the creative process, a look behind the scenes, and show how one man's genius can be undermined by his selfishness and obsession. There is also some "Moby Dick" inspired stuff with the hunting of the elephant being about something more profound and enlightening. All of these themes don't exactly click together as they should, but the journey getting there is enough.What you are left with is an underrated character study. As usual with his period pieces, the attention to detail of both time and place is exquisite. And like most of his films, the movie builds to a climactic showdown, with an ending and closing moment that are among the best of Eastwood's entire filmography.

I have never liked Clint Eastwood, too many predictable and all the same kinds of characters in nearly all his films - as a director and or actor. Never liked him. But I must admit that I really enjoyed this very one. Besides the fact that it is an awesome "hommage" to the great John Huston - every movie buff already knows that - I LOVED the sequence where Eastwood talks to the antisemitic gal, in the restaurant and also the great scene where he got beaten up by the guy - I don't know the actor's name. A very great moment. AT LAST the Eastwood character fails...What a wonderful surprise.And the overall feeling of this movie I saw twenty three years ago makes me say that it's one of the best Eastwood's picture, and unfortunately the least known.

In Clint Eastwood's thinly veiled portrait of director John Huston's making of The African Queen, he plays John Wilson, who has traveled to Africa to make a movie. He instead becomes obsessed with tracking down and killing an elephant. A writer accompanying him, Pete Verrill(Jeff Fahey), is adamantly opposed to the idea of shooting such a magnificent animals. They argue over the morality of hunting for the sport of it.Eastwood shows the philosophical aspects of his characters quest. The white hunter with the black heart is within all of us. Everything we strive for has a price to pay, sometimes big and sometimes small, but always there. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. I believe that Black Hunter White Heart may well be Clint Eastwood's most underrated film.