Nairobi Affair

"Nairobi Affair" is a made for TV movie starring Charlton Heston and John Savage. The film is set in Africa and Lee (Heston) is a man who used to be a great hunter but now believes in preserving the wildlife and he takes tourists on outings to see and photograph the gorgeous animals. His son, Rick (Savage), takes it a bit further...he works for the government tracking down and, if necessary, killing poachers who are decimating the wildlife.

The pair have a nasty history and the movie only briefly mentions some of the emnity between them. Apparently, Lee divorced Rick's mother and is now living with a young hottie, Anne (Maud Adams). However, Rick ALSO has the hots for the hottie and this naturally creates some tension!

Despite being a Charlton Heston film, it's a bit disappointing. While it's nice to see the lovely Kenyan wildlife, the print is a bit yellowed and the story itself seems more like a soap opera than a serious story about wildlife preservation. It's also very slow and not nearly as exciting as it should have been. I must say, however, despite the mediocrity of the story, the music is lovely...probably the best thing about this made for TV film. Overall, an okay movie about a weird love triangle...but one with far fewer fireworks and excitement than you'd expect.

Shot entirely in Kenya, this action-adventure film rises above its flaws, chiefly of the post-production sort, telling to good effect a tale of a father and son, in love with the same woman, and their enterprises in Central Africa issuing from the son's Kenyan government contract to curtail poachers who have been killing protected species of wildlife. Lee Cahill ( Charlton Heston) and his son Rick (John Savage) have been estranged but recommence contact at the funeral of Lee's ex-wife and Rick's mother which Lee attends with his ladylove, Anne (Maud Adams), who also happens to be Rick's former lover, yet gives no sign of a lingering interest in him. Schism between the two men occurred when Lee, formerly a prominent hunter of game latterly adapted to guiding photographic safaris, left Rick's mother, for which the younger Cahill, a former Green Beret in Viet Nam, has never forgiven him. Method-acting Savage's somewhat fragile appearance operates against the credibility of his performance, specially after he is given full authority to bring about permanent extinguishment of poaching activity, but instead prefers to arrest the malefactors, even after they have attempted to kill him. A worthy attempt is made to balance the scenario's two major issues: control of the poaching problem and the possibility of a reconciliation between the two men, one of whom will face humiliation upon Anne's choice of a mate. Sturdy Heston is a bit past the calendar point where he should be declaiming platitudes of love to Adams as he must do here, and he is too slow and stiff-jointed to be fully plausible in action scenes; Adams is adequate in an underwritten role; Connie Booth is wasted in her brief part as a libidinous safari photographer's wife; however, the topflight Welsh actor John Rhys-Davies works hard at fashioning his ambiguous character. Kenya's bush country and its wildlife are remarkable and cinematographer Ronnie Taylor creates striking imagery, but editor Eric Albertson has that difficulty of avoiding choppiness, particularly during the first half, when a work is heavily cut. Despite its shortcomings, the production's climactic scenes, although steeped in melodrama, combine satisfactorily as a result of capable direction and a proper emphasis upon the need to resolve the adversarial status of the two principals.

Nairobi Affair casts Charlton Heston and John Savage as a father and so who are bound by blood and a love of Africa and its wildlife. Otherwise these two are as estranged as you can get and have been since Heston's marriage to Savage's mother broke up,

They've got even more reason to hate each other as they are both courting the same woman Maud Adams.

But when poachers are threatening Africa's wildlife the Kenyan government hires Savage who was a former Green Beret to track them down and bring them in dead or alive. So Savage seeks the help of his father who makes a living as a guide for camera safaris.

A generation ago Nairobi Affair would have gotten big screen release. The film's biggest asset the gorgeous cinematography of the Kenyan countryside should be seen on the big screen.

Watching Nairobi Affair I thought this would have been a great project for William Holden who was known for his love of Africa and its wildlife/ It may have been originally planned with Holden in mind. But he was 3 years gone when Nairobi Affair was shown on television.

Nairobi Affair is a fine film and a primer for conservationists.

This starts off with "Lee" trying to get the funeral of his wife - and it involves the star - Charlton Heston, no less - running! He's clearly not at his "Ben Hur" best and those few opening scenes rather set the tone for this rather weak and feeble take on the "Quatermain" jungle adventure. His son "Rick" (John Savage) is the product of their broken marriage and has a limited degree of respect for his dad. That isn't much helped by their shared affection for "Anne" (Maud Adams). The former man is a veteran tour guide working on safaris, the latter man an erstwhile British soldier who is employed by the Kenyan government to thwart the antics of poachers who are decimating at will. There's some lively verbiage from the always reliable John Rhys-Davies, but the rest of this is astonishingly formulaic with Adams showing none of her "Octopussy" (1983) charisma. There's loads of on-location wild animal photography that shows off the beauty and perils of the environment but the clunky story and the wooden acting leave a great deal to be desired as the action all-too-frequently finds itself subsumed in a rather dull, and unlikely, love-triangle. The star is beginning to lose his lustre here, and perhaps the more genteel "Colby's" that was beckoning was a more suitable vehicle now. It's watchable, but nobody's finest work - unless you were an hungry lion.

The chief value of this film is the contact you get with the wilderness of Africa, with its immeasurable wildlife and its glory, with all the wild animals, lions, giraffes, gnu antelopes, elephants and so on, the photography is outstanding in capturing all this, and the plot and its intrigues comes second to the nature. It's all about the problem with poachers, the constant nightmare of Africa, threatening wildlife, nature, increasing the extinction of animals and making man the worst beast of all - the baseness of killing the finest animals on earth for their ivory hits the bottom of the rottenness of man. Charlton Heston is as reliable as ever and makes a fine character, John Savage is more doubtful but gets some credits in the end, Maud Adams is their woman, while John Rhys-Davis, always a great actor, plays the most dubious part but does it well. It's not a great film, but its message gets through, and it is worth watching for the beauty and splendour of the wilderness of Africa.