Review: Jungle
Blu-ray & DVD: Jungle (2017)
In the early 1980s, an Israeli adventurer named Yossi Ghinsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) travels to Paz in Bolivia as a sort of rebellion against his strict dad (told in flashback). There, he meets Marcus Stamm (Joel Jackson), a Swiss school teacher, and Marcus’s friend Kevin Gale (Alex Russell), another traveler and photographer. Yossi meets daring adventurer Karl Ruprechter (Thomas Kretschmann) who claims he knows where a ‘lost’ Indian tribe live in the jungle and that they should go and invesitgate. After persuading Marcus and Kevin to come along, the four leave.
Next we have a sort of Ozplotation, ‘will he kill them all’?, cutting worms out of your head, indie-ish film, starring a grown-up drug taking Harry Potter.
This is almost like the antecedent to Swiss Army Man, where he jet powers a ski by farting and has a magic erection (he’s dead in this film), and Jungle follows on from it. Almost like ‘don’t go FULL indie here Dan’.
It’s a tale of survival based on a book by Yossi. Will he die? (no, he wrote a book), will he ever get that pesky worm out of his forehead? (yuk). Despite the clunky dialogue it is rather enjoyable, but too long. A lot of the exposition at the beginning could be cut out and it also seems an odd choice for Radcliffe, who admittedly does look like a dwarf compared to the other manly actors.
Ghinsberg begins to give up hope after losing all sense of direction, wondering if he will ever survive the jungle. Meanwhile, Kevin is discovered by people from the local town who take him to Rurrenabaque which is 120 miles from Yossi’s location, Curiplaya. Arriving there, Kevin called for the help of the local authorities to find Yossi. They failed to find Yossi through a plane flyover, but Kevin believes that Yossi is alive. Kevin ropes in the help of the local boat driver to search for him and finally discovers a now-weak Yossi and takes him to Rurrenabaque.
The epilogue says that Karl and Marcus were never seen again and Karl was wanted by the authorities.
Review by Tina (co-host of 60 Minutes With) from a disc kindly supplied by Umbrella Entertainment.
