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Review by: Jack Foley | Rating:
Two
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: None listed as yet
GIVEN the crass nature of a lot of children's films of late,
it's refreshing to find one that takes a more thoughtful approach
to entertaining them.
Duma is a tender, if somewhat sentimental, tale of a boy who
travels across South Africa to take his pet cheetah back to his
rightful home in the wild.
It's intelligent, well-acted and genuinely exciting in places,
even if it exists in territory that has been travelled many times
before (in films such as Born Free and Two
Brothers).
The film begins in the wild, as a young cheetah's parents are
killed by a lion, forcing him to fend for himself.
The cheetah is eventually picked up by a youngster named Xan
(Alex Michaletos) and his father (Campbell Scott), who take him
back to their farm and promptly christen him Duma (Swahili for
cheetah).
Over the ensuing years, Duma grows up and learns how to fit in
with his new surroundings, all the while developing a strong bond
with Xan.
Yet tragedy strikes when Xan's father falls ill and dies, forcing
the distraught boy and his mother (Hope Davis) to move to the
city in search of a new life.
Taking Duma with them, it quickly becomes apparent that the cheetah
will not be able to fit in and, when Duma runs riot in a school
while trying to locate Xan, the pair embark on a dangerous trek
across the desert to return Duma to his rightful terrain.
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Along the way, they befriend a mysterious
traveller, Ripkuna (Eamonn Walker), who may have his own agenda
for helping Duma, while being forced to run the gauntlet of the
rugged landscape that surrounds them.
While it takes a little while to find its stride (and strikes
a false note during its city-based sequence), the film does eventually
provide a rewarding and frequently enriching experience that can
be enjoyed by children and adults alike.
Much of the credit for this must go to director, Carroll Ballard,
who displays a keen eye for depicting nature and man's relationship
with it (much as he did in Fly Away Home and The Black Stallion).
His footage of Duma is particularly memorable and occasionally
exhilarating, while the various predicaments he places his cast
in capably demonstrate the hidden dangers that are concealed within
the wild.
A couple of sequences, especially, succeed in conveying the peril
that surrounds them, including an encounter with crocodiles and
Duma's second meeting with some hungry lions.
Yet Ballard doesn't hold back from showing some of the harsher
aspects of life in the wild and includes some scenes that might
scare really young viewers.
That said, his film also works on a human level and includes
some nice chemistry between the central trio of Xan, Duma and
Ripkuna.
It means that come the emotional finale, audiences won't mind
feeling a little manipulated and may even shed a tear or two.
This is, at the end of the day, an involving family adventure
that shows there is more to the world than computer-game violence
and crass playground antics.
It may even inspire children to want to explore the natural world
surrounding them, which can only be a good thing.
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