Trophy review – conflicted hunting documentary

This documentary about the overlap between trophy hunting and wildlife conservation makes a passionate, if not entirely convincing, argument for the legal hunting of the Big Five (elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, and rhino) as an alternative to illegal poaching. The film gives voice to the commercial case for breeding and hunting, which feels at odds with the emotive way these kills are positioned. Viewers are encouraged to balk at the blunt brutality with which a rhino’s horn (“more expensive than gold or heroin, in weight”) is sawn off, to be moved by the guttural sound of a dying elephant, and to experience indignation when an American hunter poses with a slain buck, holding it up by its horns.