Call of the mild

An adventurous boy comes of age in the gentle Duma.

By Cheryl Eddy

Just when you thought the year of the wildlife documentary was over, with all those penguins and grizzly bears safely tucked into their DVD cases, along comes Duma, the sweet tale of a boy who journeys across South Africa to return his pet cheetah to the wild. Duma isn't a doc (though it is based on a true story), but it's firmly in the kid-friendly tradition of director Carroll Ballard's previous films The Black Stallion and Fly Away Home. He also directed Never Cry Wolf, an acclaimed example of the nature-made-me-a-better-man story.

On a more wholesome planet, Ballard's style of animal filmmaking for young audiences would be prevail – not, as reality has it, the method that involves copious CGI, the droll voice of Bill Murray, and tie-in toys tucked into Happy Meals. Smaller tykes who're expecting Madagascar-type shenanigans and song stylings may be less than impressed, but older children (and their parents, as well as anyone without spawn who happens to enjoy a beautifully shot nature yarn) will have no trouble warming to Duma's charms.

Right off the bat, it goes for the kill, trotting out a pack of fuzzy-wuzzy cheetah cubs. When Mama Cheetah is offed by a passing lion, the babies are left mewling and abandoned. One tiny furball runs for the highway, where he's scooped up by 12-year-old South African Xan (Alexander Michaeletos), who just happens to be zooming by with his father, Peter (Campbell Scott). Since Xan's farm-dwelling kin, including mom Kristin (Hope Davis), are spontaneous, critter-loving types (note the chuckling parrot that lives in their kitchen), they name the foundling Duma (Swahili for cheetah), and he promptly becomes the equivalent of a family dog. Er, who knew cheetahs could play soccer?

But while the sight of a cheetah lounging in a deck chair is pretty adorable, Duma is, in no uncertain terms, a movie that exists to teach its young human hero a Very Important Lesson. As Xan's voice-over explains – mostly for the benefit of wee viewers, as grown-ups can tell from Scott's nuanced acting – Dad gets sick and recovers only briefly before the worst happens. Peter's tender suggestion to Xan that Duma be returned to the mountains where the pair first spotted him is brushed aside as Kristin reluctantly tells Xan they must leave their beloved home and move to Johannesburg. After a brief kitty-in-the-city interlude – which includes Duma's most cheesily Hollywood moment, involving the cheetah and a pack of schoolyard bullies – the movie's real narrative begins, as the boy and his ever-purring companion hit the road, intent on bringing Peter's plan to fruition.

Of course, neither boy nor cheetah is especially well equipped for the journey. "Do you even know what wild means?" Xan asks Duma, who is portrayed as an adult by several different felines (all of them flesh-and-blood; first-time thespian and real-life South African farm boy Michaeletos was cast partially because he was so comfortable around big cats). In the desert the duo encounters Rip (Oz's Eamonn Walker), a drifter of uncertain intentions who offers to guide them partway.

As the trek intensifies – shades of 1993's A Far Off Place, also about a perilous African quest, starring a very young Reese Witherspoon – Kristin frets back home while all the travelers find themselves transforming into stronger beings: Xan learns to cope with his father's death; Rip, an ex-con, finds moral redemption; and Duma – well, he learns how to hunt his own dinner, for one thing. Along the way, pretty much every creature you're expecting to see in a movie like this shows face: hippos, elephants, crocodiles, giraffes, lions, wild boars, zebras, rhinos, hyenas, bush babies, and poachers (technically unseen, but accounted for) – not to mention snooty tourists on safari.

By the time the Peter Gabriel track kicks in over the end credits, Xan's crucial lesson has been learned (along with some other potentially useful skills, such as how to keep lurking lions from attacking by building a fire in a thunderstorm). Ballard spreads the cheese very thinly, though – the catharsis at the end is certainly deserved after all the adventure that precedes it. Duma may not attain classic status, à la The Black Stallion or Born Free, or rack up as much dough as March of the Penguins, but it's a refreshing change of pace from much mainstream, intelligence-insulting kiddie fare: not a fart joke for miles, and about as far from Garfield 2 (yep, coming June 2006) as an animal-centric movie can get.

'Duma' opens Fri/6 at the Balboa Theatre, the Smith Rafael Film Center, and the Elmwood Theatre.