Maneater: Lions and tigers and Gary Busey, oh my!

Cute tiger plays a little rough.

Okay, there aren't any lions, but there is a very pretty tiger, and Gary Busey. I was kind of hoping for good ol' crazy Gary Busey, but he was very, very subdued, to the point I wondered what dosage they had him on. His character wasn't a wild and crazy guy, or anything, but I expected a little bit more life out of Gary Busey performance. In fact, this movie felt like everyone walked around in a fog, so half the time I spent viewing it I just wanted to see shots of the pretty tiger.

It starts off with a driver swerving on a foggy road to avoid a child sleepwalking. The tiger gets loose, but leaves the child alone. The driver, not so much. Then there are a few more killings, and the tiger's tracks are discovered, so we don't have any of the usual wide range denial on the parts of all the characters who insist it can't possibly be a tiger. Nope. They all agree that it's a tiger, and the media swarms all over it, making things worse.

The sleep walking boy is featured in this story, but his supposed significance never really pans out. The tiger follows the boy to where he lives with his mother in a trailer, and just sits outside as if the tiger were on a vigil, or even playing bodyguard to the boy. The boy's mother keeps him out of school, and educates him by making him memorize the Bible a chapter at a time. She wakes him up each morning with a verse, and his first words of the day must be to tell her the book and chapter the verse comes from. She claims she doesn't want him corrupted by the world. She is a very non-sympathetic character. I'll leave my analysis of the mother at that.

The boy runs all around through the woods, nearly causing car wrecks as he darts in from of vehicles, and shouting to the tiger to warn it that soldiers are on the way to kill it. It takes too much time for it to be made clear that the boy honestly didn't think the tiger he sees is real, and that he just dreamed it. And then he keeps dreaming about it, predicting who the tiger will kill next. This plot thread could have been very interesting, but it's not consistent, so it's just mildly irritating.

Gary Busey plays the town sheriff who just wants to protect everyone. There are plenty of other characters that are colorful in a pastel sort of way, including a British tiger hunter trying to redeem himself by hunting this town's tiger. Eventually the sheriff, the hunter, and the boy are all involved with tracking down the tiger, with the boy thinking the tiger is nice because he doesn't have a television and hasn't seen the pile of body parts the hungry kitty has left behind.

The ending is predictable, but it at least provides closure for all the aspects of the story. For a man versus beast movie, this one is pretty boring, bland, and not worth making time to watch. There are a couple of funny lines, but they're few and far between. If it's on and you have nothing else you feel the urge to view, go for it. Otherwise, let's release this one back into the wild and hope they don't make a sequel.

In the meantime, let's enjoy the song that I couldn't get out of my head as soon as I heard the title of this movie!