Save the Tiger

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Jack Gilford, Laurie Heineman, Norman Burton, Patricia Smith, Thayer David
Directed by: John G. Avildsen
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
1973

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A businessman (Jack Lemmon) struggles with his conscience as he's forced to make multiple immoral choices to save his business.

Review:

Tim: Save the Tiger is a good movie featuring a great performance from Jack Lemmon. The movie is a fairly depressing look at the moral decrepitude that oftentimes is necessary in American business. Our protagonist is Harry Stoner, a man nostalgic for the America of his youth and struggling to maintain some morality in the current bleak landscape (of the 1970s) in America. In the course of the film, we see him conspire to commit arson, act as a pimp for a client, cover up a near fatal accident, consider committing adultery, among other sins. This is a somewhat bleak look at how your soul can be corrupted if you want to stay in business.

The story itself is fine, but I was never fully engrossed in it. While we like Harry Stoner, I never completely cared about him- he's unlikeable in the extremes that he goes to through the course of the film. Still, Lemmon plays him in a way that causes us to be very sympathetic with him, even when we don't care for his choices. So, while we marvel at Lemmon's performance, the story around him kind of plods along for the 100 minutes of the film. This happens more often than you'd expect. Watching this movie, I loved Lemmon's portrayal of this lost soul. He puts so much emotional, restraint, explosions, and determination into this character that it's fascinating to watch him on screen. Lemmon's range of emotions depicted here is impressive. I certainly believe he deserved his Academy Award for Best Actor. He earns it by being in nearly every single scene and delivering a believable, complex performance. So, while loving Lemmon's role, I was less enthralled with the story. Now, there are certainly strong moments, but some scenes drags on too long and there's not a great sense of forward momentum in the script. It feels like the film is content with a slow meander. It also felt somewhat like we were seeing a series of individual events, rather than a totally connected narrative. We see Harry preparing for a fashion show, giving a speech, dealing with a prostitute for a customer, conspiring to commit arson, picking up a hitchhiker, and several other events. While they're all part of the tapestry of Harry Stoner's life, each event felt a little too disconnected for me. Rather than building a sense of momentum, we watched these individual moments in this character's life. I suppose you could argue this is very realistic, as life meanders about from moment to moment. So, the movie gets credit for being realistic but loses points in the entertainment arena.

Now, in addition to a wonderful performance by Lemmon, you also get a very impressive turn by Jack Gilford. Gilford was great fun to watch as Lemmon's partner and a character struggling significantly more with the criminal and immoral actions. Their interactions are some of the best of the film and their differences speak volumes.

I felt like the movie focused so much on Lemmon's character that we were never fully immersed into his world. It took me a while to fully understand everything that was going on- the fashion show, what the role of their company was, what exactly their financial situation was, the extent of their legal issues, etc. It felt like we were dropped into the middle of this character's life, but I was left with a lot of questions about what was happening. We slowly discover it all, but it was slightly frustrating to continually wonder what was going on.

So, again, Save the Tiger (which isn't a great title as the tiger saving part was fairly unsubstantial in the movie) is worth seeing for extremely good performances by Lemmon and Gilford. The rest of the movie doesn't quite measure up to their level, unfortunately.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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Glengarry Glen Ross