I finally found this 2023 movie on streaming! It's a kid's movie about an 11-year old boy in Africa investigating the murder of a rhino on the local nature reserve. Apparently it's adapted from a book series about the boy detective, but I don't know if there's an English translation available. In the film, Thabo's uncle is a park ranger who drives tourists around, while Thabo helps narrate the tour. There's also a German lady Agatha who lives nearby, and her young niece Emma is visiting.
After the dead rhino is discovered, Thabo and Emma try to find the poacher who cut off the rhino's horn, while also worrying about the rhino's orphaned baby. Based on a footprint near the corpse, Thabo's uncle is accused of the crime and arrested by the local police. So Thabo works to clear his uncle's name, and he enlists help from his friend Sifiso too. Sifiso is an older boy raising his younger siblings Pilot and Lemonade as best as he can. There's a couple of tourists who are constantly posting videos on the internet, and it seems like most everyone has cellphones. I believe that is common in Africa, as they use phones for banking in a way that's more prevalent than here.
I was able to predict the twists in the mystery, but I liked the film for showing the beautiful landscape and promoting wildlife protection. The reason that Thabo and Sifiso have time to solve cases is sad. Agatha tells Emma that Thabo's mom, and Sifiso's parents, are dead from AIDS. Even though life-saving medicines exist for that disease, not everyone in Africa can afford them, so it's common for kids to be orphaned. That's chilling, and nowadays it makes me think of everyone who died because DOGE killed USAID. Still, the movie overall is light and heartwarming, as the friends work together and learn lessons about trusting the wrong people.
Meanwhile, I keep seeing Halloween stuff on sale in stores lately. It's only August, so they're trying to force Halloween early, since Christmas started swallowing up Thanksgiving and Halloween? So annoying.
