Hatari! is a
Howard Hawks film about a team of animal catchers in Africa.
Loads and Loads of Characters, each with their own background.
- Sean (played by John Wayne), the leader who's had his heart broken in the past
- Kurt, a former racecar driver from Germany, also one of Brandy's love interests
- Dallas, an Italian photographer who's taking pictures of the animal catching and has a romantic subplot with Sean
- The Indian, the former shooter of the team. Gets gored by a rhino in the beginning and begins to think there's a jinx on hunting rhinos
- Chips, also known as The Frenchman, the current shooter. Has a vitrolic friendship with Kurt and a crush on Brandy
- Brandy, the daughter of the former leader. Has three men vying for her, but chooses Pockets.
- Pockets, the team joker, and prefers to stay away from the animals as they scare him. Also has a thing for Brandy
And a few more on the side.
Howard Hawks decided not to use a plot for the movie, instead letting the characters develop and tying it together with
Book Ends. The cast mostly averts
Fake Nationality, (except for Sean and the Indian) and as a result a lot of the actors aren't on this wiki. Check
The Other Wiki for details.
Tropes
- AB Negative: Shown Their Work, as the doctor explicitly states that he tried using plasma first on the Indian, but since it wasn't working he needs whole blood, which has to be the same type. Turns out Chips, has the right type.
- Book Ends: Catching the rhino.
- Blood Brothers: Chips and the Indian joke about this when the Indian arrives.
- Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys: Heavily averted. Chips' first scene has Kurt punch him, the rest of the gang hold Kurt back, and Chips diving back in despite being outnumbered. For the record, no cheese is in the movie either.
Sean: Stop it, will you? You can't whip us all.
Chips: I can try!
- Defeat Means Friendship: Kurt only warms up to Chips after he defeats him in a shooting contest. Chips punching him at the end seems to have added to it.
Chips: Do you still want me now?
Kurt: *smiling* You got the job.
- Ditzy Genius: Pockets. Well, more like silly genius, but you wouldn't expect such a jokey guy to catch 500 monkeys with a rocket.
- Great White Hunter: Sean
- Last Guy Wins: Pockets is the last guy to take an interest in Brandy, and the one who it turns out she has an affection for.
- Never Gets Drunk: Played with: Pockets gets drunk, he just doesn't get hungover.
- No Animals Were Harmed: Very luckily played straight, as all the animals in the chase scenes are actually wild and untrained and the actors themselves do the catching. As far as we know, no animals or people were injured, but the scene where they catch the zebra had to be dubbed over due to John Wayne's cursing.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Nearly every member of the cast. A few are justified in that they are multinational and most of their nicknames derive from their real names being hard to pronounce for people with different accents.
- The Indian's real name is Little Wolf.
- Chips' real name is Charles Murray. They found it unpronounceable, and sometimes dub him "The Frenchman" in honor of the Indian.
- Pockets' real name is never revealed.
- Dallas' real name is Anna Maria D'Allesandro.
- Practice Kiss / Test Kiss: Dallas invokes this with Sean, asking him how he likes to kiss, and then practicing. Finally, it ends with him grabbing her and kissing her. Unfortunately, Pockets breaks it up.
- Race for Your Love: with the baby elephants used as sniffer dogs.
- She Is All Grown Up: Sean says this of Brandy, once he realizes Kurt is interested in her.
- Throw It In: The rhino in the second chase really did escape, and the actors were forced to chase it down and recapture it. Hawks included the sequence for realism.
- Title Drop: When a rocket goes off accidentally, as "hatari" means "danger" in Swahili.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Again, Kurt and the Frenchman.
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