Clint Eastwood tries acting out of his normal character in this movie, being as verbose as possible. Not knowing how director John Huston looked or sounded like, I cannot say how well Eastwood portrayed him, but Eastwood simply looked like Eastwood doing a lot of talking for a change.
The plot has Huston in Britain, talking some backers into having a movie set in Africa actually located in Africa, rather than on unconvincing studio backdrops as had been done in the past. Then Huston is in Africa, having a run-in with a hotel manager and several other people, and worse yet, showing little interest in actually making the movie, but strongly desiring to shoot an elephant instead. As the title implies, the attempt to shoot the elephant winds up going badly.
So what went wrong? Basically, the story moves slowly, and we don't really understand Huston or his motives. Why fight to have a movie set in an exotic location, and then show little interest in making this movie once there? There seems to be no real point to the story, and we feel dissatisfied in the end.
The plot has Huston in Britain, talking some backers into having a movie set in Africa actually located in Africa, rather than on unconvincing studio backdrops as had been done in the past. Then Huston is in Africa, having a run-in with a hotel manager and several other people, and worse yet, showing little interest in actually making the movie, but strongly desiring to shoot an elephant instead. As the title implies, the attempt to shoot the elephant winds up going badly.
So what went wrong? Basically, the story moves slowly, and we don't really understand Huston or his motives. Why fight to have a movie set in an exotic location, and then show little interest in making this movie once there? There seems to be no real point to the story, and we feel dissatisfied in the end.