Chimp Crazy (2024)

Documentary
Rated 15
NOW TV
Spoiler Free

“It’s like walking on eggshells, man.” Except eggshells can’t rip your face off just for shits and gigs. Also isn’t that saying a bit pointless? Eggshells are already broken, you’ve either wasted the egg, or eaten the delicious egg. The saying should be “it’s like walking on eggs”, though even writing it, that doesn’t read right. Either way, eat eggs, don't walk on them (you’re welcome to the secondhand shells) and don’t treat chimps as surrogate babies, you mad cunt.

Chimp Crazy’s opening scene of a small (ish) chimpanzee going mental watching the opening to 2001 A Space Odyssey where a chimp smashes human bones, while attached to a rope around its neck, even if faked, sets the tone well for this four part documentary. It all starts with a seemingly naïve “we love animals and treat them well” but opens into the bigger issue- that of “fuck you this isn’t right”- quite quickly.

Chimp Crazy is basically a PETA sting operation using a fake director to expose the nutjobs convinced primates love them like the children they either have or would undoubtedly fuck up. Main monkey mutherfucker, Tonia Haddix, has seven primates as children/inmates who she loves and definitely don’t want to eat her face. The government wants to take them away, and the fate of her favourite, Tonka, takes centrestage.

The “proxy director” Dwayne Cunningham looks like The Rock in 20 years if he went into the circus rather than, erm, WWE, which is definitely not a circus. He’s great, much like Dwayne Johnson. Tonia is probably only safe from her captives because her face is already 99% botox and if chimps are as closely related to us as everything ever bangs on about, they have taste. Or perhaps pink tracksuits are the animal kingdom’s natural deterrent.

You’ve probably noticed I don't care much for Tonia and as Chimp Crazy’s narrative delves into the mystery of whether she’s faked the death of Tonka, It gets more and more ominous and depressing; even though she’s tarted up like an elderly Barbie on meth. Chimp Crazy did make me ask a lot of questions, which I’ve come to learn is a good thing for growth as a person.

How do these people have the money to cage and feed these animals? Tonia’s husband, mostly looking ashamed in the background, must be loaded. It doesn’t seem like he’s living his dream and he looks less happy and more like he’s sussed the whole documentary isn’t going to have a positive spin as time goes on. I’d say she must be satisfying him elsewhere but that leads to a chain of thought I don’t want to descend into too far.

Saying that, I have an insuppressible mental image of Tonia giving hand shandies through metal bars to Tonka while wearing marigolds. And I’ve probably added two layers of protection to that encounter.

“Natural habitat”: a concrete jungle with a massive fence. Who are they, Donald Trump?

To be PETA do you have to be vegan? PETA annoy me, but why? I’m not going to be a meat eater apologist, the only reason we have vegans is we ate animals long enough to make people dumb enough to be them. You know how many vegans I’ve seen taking coke or wearing diamonds? Far more than I’ve managed to eat.

They’ve got good ideas though, PETA, and mostly come from the right place, but come on, eat some fucking food. I’m not against a bullet to the head of a soldier, or just someone who deserved it, and I don’t want to eat them. This just got into a very difficult moral quandary, but animals should not be treated like humans and the same the other way. Neither should be abused. Unless they deserve it, and that’s subjective - discuss.

Either primates are sentient beings with a grasp of right and wrong, in which case they know killing is bad, or they aren’t in which case they don’t and can’t stop. Shoot if needs be, but preferably don’t put the poor thing in that position in the first place.

I have digressed somewhat, but I take issue with cruelty and hypocrisy and Chimp Crazy Lady is cruel, as is anybody who thinks holding wild animals in cages, even when they’re rich, is. A  vanity project. You love them that much and think they love you? Go live in the jungle and throw your shit at them when they piss you off, see what happens.

Framed around the is Tonka alive question, Chimp Crazy is more interesting watching these fucktards rip their own makeup off though as the mystery around Tonka swirls, Tonia does manage some crocodile tears; performed like someone who never has, and never should own a crocodile. Do not let this window licker near any more animals, even the delicious eaty type, she’d probably give pigs cosmetic surgery and name them after her.

No spoilers, but animals are dangerous and humans are awful, except Alan Cumming who rocks up in patches just being all charming and wonderful. Chimp Crazy is food for thought.

Bedsit it?

Sure the Americans are both good and bad nuts, but I think dangerous pets ownership is a better reason for gun ownership than anything else. “Oh you have chimps next door? I want a fully automatic. And landmines.” 7/10

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