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WELCOME
TO THE JUNGLE
6/10
aka
The Rundown : USA 2003 : Peter BERG : 104 mins
“Have fun,”
says Arnold Schwarzenegger at the beginning of Welcome to the Jungle
– a blink-and-miss-him cameo as a bloke walking out of a nightclub just
as the film’s hero Beck (WWF beefcake Dwayne Johnson, aka ‘The
Rock’) walks in. If we conveniently overlook his upcoming cameo in the
Around the World in 80 Days remake, the line stands as neat Hollywood
auf wiedersehen from California’s new Governor – a graceful baton-passing
to the new muscle-hero on the block. And of course Arnold isn’t just telling
The Rock to enjoy himself – the injunction also applies to the audience
as well, priming us for what turns out to be an unexpectedly entertaining,
if utterly disposable, action-comedy romp.
The daft plot
sees Los Angeles ‘retrieval expert’ (and skilled chef) Beck taking on
the proverbial ‘one last job’ before retiring to realise his dream of
running his own restaurant. For reasons never quite fully explained, Beck
is hired by devious millionaire Walker (William Lucking) to track down
his errant son Travis (Seann William Scott). A motormouthed, cocksure
would-be Indiana Jones, Travis’s pursuit of a fabled relic (‘Gato del
Diablo’) leads him to a remote town in the Amazon ‘jungle’ (i.e. rain
forest) dominated by ruthless American goldmine-operator Hatcher (Christopher
Walken). Hatcher’s exploitation of the local workforce is opposed by well-armed
rebels including Travis’s sultry, feisty, on-off girlfriend Mariana (Rosario
Dawson). All of which makes complicates Beck’s mission no end...
One-time actor
Berg has clearly come on leaps and bounds in the half-decade since his
previous feature, 1998’s Very Bad Things: the flop Cameron Diaz/Christian
Slater trouble-in-Vegas ‘comedy’ widely (and only slightly unfairly) referred
to as ‘Very Bad Film’ by those unfortunate enough to have seen
it. Berg wrote the script for that misfire – this time R J Stewart and
James Vanderbilt handle screenplay duties (story by Stewart) and for the
most part they do a solid job.
Berg keeps
things moving at a fast clip, and while most of the action is silly and
juvenile, the film certainly doesn’t take itself at all seriously – despite
the glib treatment of its ever-topical subject-matter (American exploitation/oppression
of the global poor), only the most po-faced could possibly take serious
offence. How seriously can anyone regard a film which revolves around
the quest for a gewgaw which, when found, bears an eerie resemblance to
the Jules Rimet trophy – and which looks suspiciously light for a supposedly
solid-gold ‘artefact.’
The Rock,
meanwhile, makes for a very personable, laid-back hero – refreshingly,
Beck only uses violence when absolutely necessary, and guns as a terminal
last resort. And his predictably up-and-down relationship with Scott (back
on form after the dire Bulletproof
Monk) has rather more zip and energy than most recent big-screen
buddy-pairings (especially those featuring Owen Wilson). Adding to the
fun, Ewen Bremner pops up as an Ulsterman pilot-for-hire who makes Snatch’s
Brad Pitt sound like Alastair Cooke. Though Dawson is, needless
to say, criminally underused, Walken is, needless to say, outstanding
value – packing more into the single word ‘refrigerator’ than most actors
manage in their whole careers.
And the script
does give him one great villainous speech, in which Hatcher manages to
compares himself with a trio of literary tyrants within the space of a
minute: Joseph Conrad’s Col.Kurtz (“I’m the heart in the darkness!”),
H G Wells’ Dr Moreau (“Are we not men?!”) and Roald Dahl’s Willie Wonka
(“you... Oompah Loompahs!”). Come to think of it, isn’t the whole bring-back-my-son
set-up a nod to Patricia Highsmith’s Talented
Mr Ripley – itself ‘borrowed’ from Henry James’ The Ambassadors?
Hmm... On reflection... probably not.
25th
March, 2004
(seen 23rd March : Odeon, Gate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
by Neil
Young
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