L'ultima Africa

Shown recently on UK television under the title"The Last Elephant" this comes over as well intentioned but curiously flat,and falling between two stools being neither wholesome family material or a gritty expose of the illegal ivory trade John Lithgow plays a respected but hard drinking novelist whose research assistant is murdered while stumbling across ivory hunting when taking photographs of elephants in Kenya.He journeys to Africa and becomes involved with the attempt by the Game Department and Nairobi Police to track down the poachers.In the process he forms a romantic attachment with the head of an elephant preserve and p[laces himself in danger.

Performance are good as you would expect from a cast with the likes of Lithgow ,James Earl Jones(in sonorous voice as the Nairobi cop assigned to the case)Isabella Rossellini and Tony Todd.Visually pleasing thanks to its Kenyan locations the movie lacks real drama and plods to a conclusion.Pity,since it is an important subject and the movie will have done some good if it raises the issue with anyone who comes across it.