A heartfelt, inspiration and captivating emotional journey. Orca is a protest against hate, intolerance and dehumanization, and a protest for love, compassion, freedom, democracy and happiness. It's a triumph.

This drama ... is a genuinely inspiring story, in part because it doesn't adhere to the formula we might expect...

Not great like “Jaws,” but a moving maritime tragedy and, in ways, magnificent RELEASED IN 1977 and directed by Michael Anderson, "Orca" stars Richard Harris as a Newfoundland fisherman trying to make some big money by capturing a killer whale for a marine park. Unfortunately he ends up horribly botching the job, which incurs the vengeful wrath of the father killer whale. Coming out two years after the blockbuster “Jaws,” this is sort of a knockoff, but it’s too different in story/tone to be cheap imitation, although there are obvious similarities: The last third of the film involves a boat crew sailing out to sea to take on the oceanic antagonist; and another scene where an individual slides down a leaning platform toward the marine creature. In any case, “Orca” may not be technically as good as "Jaws" but it certainly has its unique attractions. The story is a maritime tragedy and utterly serious in tone with no lightness to be seen, like in “Piranha” (1978). The melodramatic plot basically inverts Melville’s “Moby Dick” wherein in the whale takes the place of bitter Ahab. The score by Ennio Morricone (e.g. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly") is equal-parts beautiful, touching and haunting. Also, the casting is great: Harris is perfect as the aging sea salt, Charlotte Rampling is super sharp & intellectual as the cetacean biologist, Will Sampson ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's…

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