Jungle | Daniel Radcliffe battles the odds and the elements in a true-story adventure

Jungle Daniel Radcliffe Yossi Ghinsberg
(Image credit: HECTOR ALVAREZ A)

Nature Has Only One Law. Survival.

A world away from the wizardry of Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe plays real-life adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg, an Israeli backpacker who survived a terrifying ordeal in the Bolivian jungle in 1981.

His plight really is the stuff of nightmares. Trekking around South American after national service, Yossi and two friends he has made along the way find themselves talked into undertaking an expedition in search of a lost Indian village by a blustering Austrian stranger (Thomas Kretschmann). Unsurprisingly, the venture goes awry and Yossi ends up stranded alone in the jungle, without supplies.

Director Greg McLean, creator of Australian horror thriller Wolf Creek, makes us squirm and flinch as Yossi undergoes a string of gruesome perils, including rapids, bogs, fire ants, snakes, a jaguar and, most gruesome of all, a wriggling parasitic worm. Some hallucinogenic episodes and fantasy sequences don’t’ really work, but Radcliffe’s wild-eyed grit keeps us watching to the end.

Certificate 15. Runtime 115 mins. Director Greg McLean

Jungle available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Signature Entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQUTbTVb5U

Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.