Before we really get into Hunting Elephants, know this: this is a movie in which Captain Picard dresses up like Darth Vader. For pub trivia alone, this mild, not very successful Israeli heist picture is one for the books.
Patrick Stewart plays Lord Michael Simpson, a penniless peer whose father cut him off when he decided to become an actor. We meet him in the midst of his latest cash-siphoning production, Hamlet: Revenge of the Sith. His nephew, a security guard in Israel, has just died, leaving a widow and son in financial dire straits. Simpson returns to Jerusalem, where his sister is in a coma, and immediately locks horns with his coarse brother-in-law, Eliyahu (Sasson Gabai, best known for the 2007 film The Band’s Visit). Whether Eliyahu was part of the Irgun or the Stern Gang is left unsaid, but when Simpson accuses him of having been a Jewish terrorist, he doesn’t put much energy into fighting the accusation.
“We did it for the Jewish people!” Eliyahu says, when asked about deeds such as robbing banks. “Psssh, we did it for the girls,” counters Nick (Moni Moshonov), an older sidekick whose eyesight may be shot but whose libido has not diminished. These lingering political tensions is the most interesting thing in Hunting Elephants, but it is, alas, shoved aside for a fairly rote caper and a muddled coming-of-age storyline for young Yonatan (Gil Blank).
Yonatan, ostensibly the lead in the film but by far the least interesting character, is a socially awkward maths whiz. He blames himself for his father’s death, which involved a complex new vault system at the bank where he worked. When the pencil-pushing bank manager starts moving in on Yonatan’s now widowed mother, it makes sense that he would want to conspire with his grandfather Eliyahu, Nick and, eventually, Lord Simpson to rip the place off.
Hunting Elephants has its requisite scenes of planning and setbacks, but it mostly settles for old-people jokes (now I know the Hebrew for Viagra: it’s Viagra) and making Patrick Stewart look like an imbecile. He horahs his way through the senior citizens’ home (“I’m dancing the primitive Jewish dance!”) and mugs to the camera about “these Israeli women!” Stewart is so likable he can basically pull it off, but he shouldn’t have to. This is a silly character; a clueless actor who asks “what’s my motivation?” during high-pressure situations, which is the type of gag more appropriate on The Muppet Show.
There are other missteps, such as an occasional dip into mock-documentary “confessional” mode. What’s strange is that the movie only does so four or five times, leading me to believe the device may have been more prevalent in earlier cuts but was then removed. The decrepit grandfather and the wayward grandson want to be the heart of the story, but fail to connect. I don’t blame young Gil Blank, I blame the fact that writer-director Reshef Levi gave him a blank character. (I did love one moment, when the two are playing chess and his grandfather asks Yonatan if the girl he likes is pretty. He responds: “I don’t know. I don’t have the authority to determine that.” But this may be a case of something being gained in the translation.)
Points given for shooting on location in Jerusalem. It’s good to see familiar landmarks such as the Tower of David or the Dome of the Rock in a context that is neither religious nor (really) political. It’s a reminder that Jerusalem is a living city with ordinary people going about their lives, even if some of those lives make for a movie that’s probably worth skipping.
- Hunting Elephants is out in the US on 8 May
