NETFLIX FILM REVIEW: JUNGLE (2017)
Directed by: Greg McLean
Produced by: Todd Fellman, Mike Gabrawy, Gary Hamilton, Mark Lazarus, Dana Lustig, Greg McLean
Screenplay by: Justin Monjo
Based on: Jungle by Yossi Ghinsberg
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Alex Russell, Thomas Kretschmann, Yasmin Kassim, Joel Jackson, Jacek Koman etc.
Music by: Johnny Klimek
***MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS***
It’s one of my least favourite sub-genres of cinema and literature: the survivalist story. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against an individual striving to find themselves or seek out adventure. I don’t wish them ill or death and am glad they somehow survived, or alternatively, not glad they perished. However, I do have problem when it all goes wrong and they end up gaining fame or money or praise for poor life choices. They are not heroes or heroines but narcissistic thrill seekers, generally from a privileged standing who get films made about them as apparently their stories are inherently cinematic.
Begrudgingly, I admit, in many circumstances such as: 127 Hours (2010), Into the Wild (2007) and Touching the Void (2003), survivival stories create compelling film narratives. Alas, the film Jungle (2017) is nowhere near as good as those films I mention, but it provides a means to escape to the dark corners of the Amazon from the comfort of one’s own living room. The moronic characters we follow into said jungle are led by Daniel Radcliffe’s, Yossi. He and two friends decide, against the advice every audience member screaming at the screen, to broaden their selfish adventurous spirits by going native with Thomas Kretschmann’s shady German guide. Safe to say, after experiencing the unforgiving terrain, torrential rain and strange creatures in the jungle, this middle-class trio find they are well out of their depth. Thus, very slowly the film crawls like a giant slug toward further catastrophe.
Jungle (2017) is not a bad film, but it isn’t a particularly good one. The direction and cinematography are excellent and Daniel Radcliffe proves he is an exceptionally honest actor. Radcliffe works his guts out with a shell of a character we rarely care about or empathise with. Perhaps that’s the point? Maybe it’s a cautionary tale about how Yossi stops being such an arsehole and learns to appreciate life and the environment. My main issue was the screenplay, which rushes to get us in the jungle and then takes an age to get to the real drama. What was great about a film like Into the Wild (2007), also based on a true story, was Christopher McCandless was a character who rejected society to find his own place in the world. He wasn’t just a tourist on a holiday that went a bit wrong. I mean, in Jungle (2017), people lost their lives, but the greatest tragedy was the film doesn’t make us care about them at all.
The Cinema Fix presents 