Finished

Cast:

Sometimes wonderful and unexpected things happen when you set out to make a documentary, and this is very much the case with The Rescuer, which began as a 15-year chronicle of the activities of Leo Grillo, a man who loves animals, perhaps too much.

In 1979, Grillo, an up-and-coming young Hollywood actor driving to a location shoot, spotted a bedraggled abandoned dog wandering under the broiling desert sun. Leo couldn't resist stopping to pick up the animal and subsequently nursing it back to health. This experience opened Leo's eyes to a shocking problem: annually, thousands of pets are tossed out and simply left to die at the edges of Los Angeles' urban sprawl.Almost before he realizes it, Leo has found and taken in 35 more abandoned dogs, saving them from certain death. The rescues continue and soon Leo has formed a nonprofit organization called D.E.L.T.A. (Dedication and Everlasting Love to Animals), which eventually grows to include a 94-acre 'supershelter' housing over 1400 abandoned dogs and cats, the largest organization of its type in the world.A controversial figure on a seemingly inexplicable mission, Leo begins receiving a lot of attention from newspapers and television for his animal rescue work. But saving abandoned pets and running the organization takes so much of his time that Leo is forced to put his acting career on hold.The documentary crew following Leo and the amazing story of the growth of D.E.L.T.A. Rescue has an unexpected effect on him. In an effort to show what he is accomplishing and how he goes about it, the very process of filming unexpectedly forces Leo to discover for the first time the underlying issue of why - why he changed the course of his life in response to the needs of these animals... Why he gives up his career... Why he moves time and again in order to house his growing menagerie... Why he feels compelled to dedicate his life to pets nobody else wants, even at the expense of his own dreams.

What begins as a straightforward account becomes a kind of cinema-driven self-analysis of a fascinating and determined personality as Leo's self-awareness blossoms and he comes to understand for the first time the underlying reasons his life has moved in such an unusual, dramatic, and totally unexpected direction.