Save the Tiger
Watching someone’s midlife crisis unravel is oddly compelling. Save the Tiger leans right into that discomfort. Harry Stoner’s day-from-hell – a failing garment business, creative accounting, an arson scheme and wartime ghosts he can’t quite file away – feels unnervingly modern. Swap the rotary phones for smartphones and you’ve basically got a story about cooked books, broken ethics and a man running on fumes.
Jack Lemmon is the whole show, shuffling through like a man permanently ten minutes late to his own life. He’s brittle-funny, but the panic is always just under the surface. Jack Gilford gives him a lovely, anxious counterweight, while John G. Avildsen keeps it tight, trapping Harry in one long, bad day.
Some of the script really hasn’t aged well – especially the way it treats women and the sex worker subplot – but the spine still works: a guy telling misty baseball anecdotes while he quietly arranges to burn his world down. Not an easy watch, but as a portrait of a man buckling under the weight of his own success story, it still hits hard.
Jack Lemmon is the whole show, shuffling through like a man permanently ten minutes late to his own life. He’s brittle-funny, but the panic is always just under the surface. Jack Gilford gives him a lovely, anxious counterweight, while John G. Avildsen keeps it tight, trapping Harry in one long, bad day.
Some of the script really hasn’t aged well – especially the way it treats women and the sex worker subplot – but the spine still works: a guy telling misty baseball anecdotes while he quietly arranges to burn his world down. Not an easy watch, but as a portrait of a man buckling under the weight of his own success story, it still hits hard.
Mini Review: Watching someone’s midlife crisis unravel is oddly compelling, and Save the Tiger leans into that discomfort. Lemmon shuffles through a single bad day of cooked books, arson schemes and wartime ghosts, funny and panicked at once. Some dated attitudes grate, especially around women, but as a portrait of a man crushed by his own “success”, it still hits hard.