Jungle

Directed by Greg McLean, Jungle follows Daniel Radcliffe’s Yossi as he finds himself lost in the Bolivian rain forest after losing track of his traveling companions. Filmmaker McLean, armed with Justin Monjo’s screenplay, delivers a slightly erratic yet mostly engrossing drama that grows more and more absorbing as it progresses, although it’s equally apparent that the movie’s first half benefits from its episodic look at the (uniformly well-developed) protagonists’ exploits en route to said rain forest. And although McLean elicits solid work from performers like Thomas Kretschmann and Alex Russell, Radcliffe’s perpetually (and impressively) lived-in turn as the sympathetic central character anchors the movie throughout and ensures that the midsection, which is predominantly focused on Yossi’s solo attempts at both staying alive and escaping the jungle, is generally far more spellbinding than one might’ve initially anticipated. (The engaging vibe is undoubtedly heightened by an ongoing emphasis on interludes of a tense, exciting nature, including Yossi’s encounter with a dangerous snake and a quicksand-related close call.) By the time the thoroughly satisfying final stretch rolls around, Jungle has cemented its place as a better-than-average survival picture that’s consistently elevated by Radcliffe’s eye-opening, completely convincing performance.

***1/2 out of ****