'Save the Tiger'
A retrospective movie review by Walter Frith
As a testament to questionable business ethics, 'Save the Tiger' works. As a testament to the most extreme of human conditions, 'Save the Tiger' works. As a testament to some of the finest screen acting ever, 'Save the Tiger' works magnificently. Don't mistake it as a preachy, self-indulgent guilt trip on the part of its main characters. What the film is really about is one man's longing for the past to a happier time in his life as he sees his marriage crumble, his business decline and his sanity tested.
Jack Lemmon who has been a shining example of screen acting in its purest form won a Best Actor Oscar for this film which has all the subtlety of a traffic jam and twice the ulcer inducing lifestyle of a common businessman. Lemmon stars as Harry Stoner, a clothing manufacturer facing bankruptcy, foreclosure and the most important moral decision of his life. He and his partner (Jack Gilford) have to decide whether or not to hire the services of a professional arsonist to set fire to their main building in order to collect badly needed money from an insurance settlement for a corporate diversion of funds.
Locked in a heated exchange of moral justification for their opposite positions, Lemmon and Gilford are a great pair of actors looking at times as if they are acting in a stage play and making the most of their roles. Lemmon is in favour of torching the building while Gilford is not. Lemmon's secret desire as we find out in the course of the film was to be a big league baseball player. As a veteran of war, there is one emotionally gut wrenching scene where Lemmon is delivering a speech before a large audience and in his mind sees the combat beaten bodies of soldiers in the crowd instead of the real people who are there. While his wife is away, he has a brief fling with a young hippie flower girl who is the complete opposite of his cultural perspective on life.
'Save the Tiger' is a film that doesn't jump all over the place. It has focus and is set primarily over the course of two days in the life of a tormented individual who is very human, a little bit sad and even though he is going to commit a criminal act to save his business, a strange sense of sympathy is generated for his character. Written by Steve Shagan and directed by John G. Avildsen ('Rocky'), 'Save the Tiger' is a film that doesn't strain its convictions, it presents them honestly.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews