Cecil: The Lion and the Dentist review

There are many stark, unsettling questions raised by recent true-crime sagas, but this film narrows its focus to a single, older question: what makes someone kill an animal for sport? Not for food or defence, but for the trophy and the photograph that proves it.

The idea becomes stranger still when the killer depends on guides and professional hunters because he lacks the skills to track and take the animal himself. Cecil: The Lion and the Dentist examines the 2015 killing of Cecil, a famed lion in Hwange National Park, by an American hunter, Dr Walter Palmer.

Oxford researchers tracking the animal noticed his collar stopped recording, and days later found his skinned, headless body. Local accounts say Cecil crossed from the park into a hunting area and was shot after being taken there by professional hunter Theo Bronkhurst; Palmer then returned to the US.

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