WILDCAT (2022)

WILDCAT is a documentary about British soldier Harry Turner who’s sent to war in Afghanistan at the age of 18, is medically discharged with PTSD and finds healing for body and soul in a remote location, the Peruvian Amazon, with an unlikely companion, an ocelot, that’s being prepared for a return to the wild. WILDCAT is compelling and has high artistic, entertaining production values, but it could use some better editing and has a strong humanist, romantic, therapeutic worldview with lots of strong foul language and troubling aspects such as acute depression and thoughts of suicide.

Traveling to South America to try and sort things out, Harry meets Samantha Zwicker, a wildlife preservationist who founded and directs a compound called Hoja Nueva. The compound is a Non-Government Organization (NGO) that seeks to protect local flora and fauna from poaching and other destructive practices and specifically to reintroduce certain native species back into the natural environment via Project Rewild.

Meeting Khan, a young ocelot found in the trunk of a felled tree, changes Harry’s life. He begins to regain a reason for living. Harry says, “It really just makes me think that this world that you live in isn’t so bad after all. He’s saving me, and I’m saving him.”

When tragedy strikes and Khan is killed by a poacher’s trap, it seems that all hope of Harry’s recovery is lost. Then, another baby ocelot is brought to the compound. He’s named Keanu and taken deep into the Amazon to reside in isolated safety with Harry until he can be released back into the wild. Might Keanu be the key to Harry’s recovery?

The cinematography in WILDCAT is impressive and beautiful, and the real-life encounters with Amazon wildlife (including sloths, snakes, caiman crocodiles, other ocelots, etc.) really are phenomenal. The two major characters, playing themselves, are both convincing and sympathetic, although the conclusion of their relationship will be a downer for many viewers. The documentary nature of the movie is engaging and effective and helps the movie’s realism. These are real people going through real trauma, trials, and triumph. The story is told well and sensitively, given its very mature subject matter. It has high artistic and entertaining production values. There were times that the movie dragged and more editing was needed, such as in the scenes of Harry’s self-destructive habits. The viewer gets the picture without it beating them over the head with them. Overall, though, this tale of healing from horror through a very unique rehabilitation program is compelling.

However, herein lies one of the movie’s major worldview assumptions of the movie: the idea that the deep physical and spiritual trauma of life can be healed by purely naturalistic means. Harry says of Khan, “He’s saving me, and I’m saving him.” Later, Samantha remarks on Harry’s relationship with Keanu, “I feel like he’s putting so much on this project with Keanu that it’s almost like his redemption.” These are statements of the false gospel of the therapeutic. In this vein, the movie ends leaving its protagonists in the hands of loving family and professional fame but never having addressed the deeply spiritual longings of these human beings made in the image of their Creator. For this reason, the movie has an overall humanist, romantic, therapeutic worldview in which, if there is hope of man’s redemption, it is to be sought through man himself, which will only disappoint. Other troubling aspects in WILDCAT make it very mature faire. For example, WILDCAT has lots of strong foul language, including at least 36 “f” words, and dark elements of depression, self-harm and suicide. So, ultimately, WILDCAT is unsuitable for anyone but an adult audience.

WILDCAT has a brief theatrical run before it goes streaming on Amazon Prime.