''The Last Witness'' is a 1999 made-for-TV movie which was originally titled ''Caracara''. It was written by Craig Smith and directed by

Graeme Clifford Graeme Clifford (born 1942) is an Australian film director. His directing credits include the Academy Award-nominated film ''Frances'', ''Gleaming the Cube'' and the mini-series ''The Last Don'', which received two Emmy nominations. Clifford ...

. Release date was 1 December 1999. The cast included

Natasha Henstridge Natasha Tonya Henstridge (born August 15, 1974) is a Canadian actress and model. In 1995, she came to prominence with her debut role in the science-fiction thriller ''Species'', followed by performances in ''Species II'' and ''Species III''. She ...

Johnathon Schaech Johnathon Schaech ( ; born September 10, 1969) is an American actor and screenwriter. He has been working as an actor since the early '90s. Early life Johnathon Schaech was born in Edgewood, Maryland, in 1969 to Joe, a Baltimore City law enfo ...

, and

Lauren Hutton Lauren Hutton (born Mary Laurence Hutton; November 17, 1943) is an American model and actress. Born and raised in the southern United States, Hutton relocated to New York City in her early adulthood to begin a modeling career. Though she was ini ...

Plot

In New York City, museum ornithologist Rachel Sutherland is fully engrossed in her work, with no time for outside interests or romance, when she is approached by FBI agents who ask to use her apartment as a command post to track and apprehend a South African operative who is planning to assassinate SA President

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...

. As this tracking operation unfolds, Sutherland finds herself attracted to McMillan, the apparent leader of the group, but along the way she comes to realize that, instead of being an FBI agent, McMillan is actually the SA operative, who is maneuvering to eliminate all witnesses to the planned operation, including Sutherland herself. She manages to escape, even while thwarting his attempts to assassinate the others who are aware.

Production

This film was made on an unusually modest budget, filmed in Canada as a stand-in for New York City. It was shown on television

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

(with an R rating) under the title '' Caracara'', which is described in the movie as a 'species of

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known as the peregrine, and historically as the duck hawk in North America, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (Bird of prey, raptor) in the family (biology), family Falco ...

', and which supposedly was the type of bird that was housed in Sutherland's flat. In fact, the term 'peregrine falcon' is a stand-alone species, and also the bird used for this production was a

Harris's hawk The Harris's hawk (''Parabuteo unicinctus''), formerly known as the bay-winged hawk, dusky hawk, and sometimes a wolf hawk, and known in Latin America as peuco, is a medium-large bird of prey that breeds from the southwestern United States south ...

and only superficially resembles a true caracara.

Cast

as Rachel Sutherland *

as David J. McMillan * Michael Filipowich as Jack Pellegrino *

David McIlwraith David McIlwraith is a Canadian actor who has appeared in numerous television series and in several films since the 1970s. He co-starred in the 1993 television series ''White Fang'' and also had a prominent role as Dr. Reginald Murdoch in the 2001 ...

as Alan Crancer *

Robin Brûlé Robin Brûlé is a Canadian actress, who is best known for her role as Susan Hunter in the ''Roxy Hunter ''Roxy Hunter'' is a fictional character played by Aria Wallace in four television films for Nickelodeon in the United States: ''Roxy Hunter ...

as Christy Dyer *

as Cynthia Kirkman Sutherland * Kate Greenhouse as Detective Deena Mason

References

* https://www.tvguide.com/movies/caracara/134953/ * http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/last-witness-1999-1 * https://www.actionfreunde.de/the-last-witness/ * https://www.film.at/the_last_witness_nur_tote_zeugen_schweigen 1999 films {{Graeme Clifford