When his own ranch in Texas is gradually eaten away by the population boom and the unstoppable urban sprawl that is called "progress", Jim Sinclair seeks some more unspoilt country to carry on his skills. Following an invitation from Wing Commander Howard Hayes (retired) he travels to Africa with his friend and partner (not like that) John Henry to look into a job offer. Hayes plans to capture the wild animals of the African plains, tame them and breed them as others do with cattle. However the idea has its critics and Sinclair finds he has to contend with threats on two feet as well as four.
I don't know what I expected from this western pilot for a TV series I have never seen or will ever bother to try and see. I assume it was the weirdly comic title screaming out of the TV guide at me because even after watching it I couldn't find anything else that would encourage me to watch it again. The film opens with sweeping landscapes but after a while the shots of animals being roped start to get dull and it exposed the fact that the plot, about catching wild animals, is actually pretty boring as well. Essentially the plot has been thrown together to get a central "ranch" for the story to happen around but, as a pilot, the film put more effort into creating this base than it does into delivering a story. Occasionally the dialogue gets into interesting areas on hunting, catching animals, racism etc but generally I think these were in my mind because the film doesn't do anything of real interest with the themes are the script dismisses the subjects as soon as they threaten to be more than words.
The cast can do nothing to reverse this because they are fairly TV standard. O'Brian sleep walks his way through the film or at least he looks like he is asleep but I got the impression that he was acting flat out to come across as wooden as he did. Nardini is just as bad a Mexican sidekick who cannot do anything add anything in the way of comic value. Mills takes the money for nothing while Corri is as dull as dishwater and a very bad choice for a sort of love interest. Green is a solid villain while Malinda offers an acceptable cute kid to represent Africa while also allowing lots of non-speaking performances in colourful paint.
Overall a rather dull film that is a very obvious pilot due to how little it does other than set up a couple of cowboys, a ranch, some relationships and a bad guy. The plot and the action are fairly dull and I cared less and less the more the film went on. The cast don't do anything to help matters and generally turned in the type of performances you get when the material just requires actions from their characters instead of emotion. Not worth the two hours it will fill.
I don't know what I expected from this western pilot for a TV series I have never seen or will ever bother to try and see. I assume it was the weirdly comic title screaming out of the TV guide at me because even after watching it I couldn't find anything else that would encourage me to watch it again. The film opens with sweeping landscapes but after a while the shots of animals being roped start to get dull and it exposed the fact that the plot, about catching wild animals, is actually pretty boring as well. Essentially the plot has been thrown together to get a central "ranch" for the story to happen around but, as a pilot, the film put more effort into creating this base than it does into delivering a story. Occasionally the dialogue gets into interesting areas on hunting, catching animals, racism etc but generally I think these were in my mind because the film doesn't do anything of real interest with the themes are the script dismisses the subjects as soon as they threaten to be more than words.
The cast can do nothing to reverse this because they are fairly TV standard. O'Brian sleep walks his way through the film or at least he looks like he is asleep but I got the impression that he was acting flat out to come across as wooden as he did. Nardini is just as bad a Mexican sidekick who cannot do anything add anything in the way of comic value. Mills takes the money for nothing while Corri is as dull as dishwater and a very bad choice for a sort of love interest. Green is a solid villain while Malinda offers an acceptable cute kid to represent Africa while also allowing lots of non-speaking performances in colourful paint.
Overall a rather dull film that is a very obvious pilot due to how little it does other than set up a couple of cowboys, a ranch, some relationships and a bad guy. The plot and the action are fairly dull and I cared less and less the more the film went on. The cast don't do anything to help matters and generally turned in the type of performances you get when the material just requires actions from their characters instead of emotion. Not worth the two hours it will fill.