I kind of knew that this would suck. Today's film- Burning Bright- was discovered in kind of an odd way. When the Blockbuster stores in my area started closing, I went shopping (see Raiding Blockbuster Video). During those visits, I kept seeing the movie. It has a premise so 'out there' that I just couldn't believe it. It's like a Troma film...only meant to be serious. It's this simple- a woman and her mentally-challenged brother are trapped in a house with a tiger. Stop and think about that for a minute. I'm not sure whether you're laughing or just staring off confused. Either way, this movie is a very strange, so it warranted a rental. A purchase- not so much. Put on your sunglasses, because this movie is...
The movie begins pretentiously-enough with our heroine (Greg Tekwar Evigan's daughter Briana) reading a poem from the early 20th Century. It's also one of those poems that uses the 'lazy rhyme' by mispronouncing a word to make it rhyme with the word 'bright.' The plot begins properly with the dad from Raising Hope (is that cancelled yet) buying a Tiger from Meatloaf. Let's just ponder that sentence for a moment. Moving on, the guy brings the Tiger home. The other plot involves our heroine dropping her brother off at a special School that is going to deal with his special needs. Unfortunately, the check doesn't clear. She goes home to find that her stepfather spent all the money from her inheritance (due to the death of her mother) on the Tiger as part of a plan to turn the area into a nature preserve. By the way, their house is in New Orleans. Right before a big storm comes in, someone lets the Tiger into the house...
Unfortunately, the film ruins the premise by neglecting to deal with the key problem- Tigers are very dangerous. So yeah, there's very little interaction between the Tiger and, oh, the cast! Here are some SPOILER-free highlights for you...
Watch your head, dude. Thank the sub-par cinematography for making this vague...
"Bye, audience. I probably should have done more to make this film notable." The End.
I hope you like long, extended shots! The plot of this movie is goofy and bizarre, but the pay-off is pretty minimal. As stated, the key problem is that a Tiger cannot exactly 'interact' with people in a normal way. It's a pretty vicious predator. As opposed to movies like Link, you can't really put the people together. As such, we are a treated to mostly the idea of the thing being in the house and maybe getting close. That's good for a while, but the film draws this out for over thirty minutes. It ceases to be dramatic tension if we know that nothing is going to happen! Incidentally, those shots I displayed above are from near the end of the movie, so don't get your hopes up. Was I the only one getting Black Water flashbacks during this, by the way? I wanted to like this movie for it's oddball premise, but I just couldn't. It's a shame, but I guess there's always the chance that another film about a Tiger stalking a mentally-handicapped kid will get made. Until then, enjoy this shot of a Tiger walking somewhere...
Up next, we continue with a British film that rips off Peter Jackson. Will this movie be a good dash of bad taste or just be brain dead? Stay tuned...
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