Dynamixor
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
SanEat
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
Anoushka Slater
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
funkyfry
When this movie first came out, I was a kid, and to me it was pretty interesting and eye-opening. Certainly compared to doing homework and my paper route in the suburbs, this kid was pretty lucky to get kidnapped by "indians". He got to hang out and swim with naked girls, hunt animals, and fight. There's definitely some wish fulfillment and some fantasy in the film, which presents itself as a sort of "heart of darkness" tale of the encounter between civilization and nature. That's a good starting point, perhaps, for the problems with the film. We have basically 2 tribes, and one of them likes to take lots of drugs and have lots of sex, while the other one is brutal and cannibalistic. This neatly ties the 2 dominant ways that white colonists tend to look at indigenous cultures into a concrete dichotomy: the noble savage vs. the cannibal savage. Also interestingly, the film shows the father figure (Powers Boothe) as a would-be white savior, but his attempts to blow up the dam with dynamite are preempted by the magic of the noble tribesmen. Regardless of the political appeal of this conclusion, the film doesn't really offer any kind of answers for what is to be done to save the rain forests or the indigenous peoples or, more importantly, to help them save themselves by any means other than frogs and magic. It's just, like "Medicine Man" and other films of this type, using the "jungle" and its inhabitants as a means of drawing the audience in and giving us a fantasy version of indigenous life. The cast in the film is notably poor, especially Boorman's son Charley, who plays the kidnapped boy as an adolescent. To be fair, the script demands an awful lot of Charley Boorman, but he can't really deliver much of it. Meg Foster barely registers, and the film in general has a very paternalistic and patriarchal tone, almost totally concerned with the relationship between men who are fathers and sons. If, like me, you have fond memories of this one from your childhood, perhaps it's best to just leave them there. The film is very well- photographed, but all the scenes with "wild" animals look like somebody put the animals right there to be photographed. It suffers very greatly compared to, say, Herzog's films like "Fitzcarraldo" where instead of inserting tropical animals just to provide some momentary visual interest, the jungle even in its dangers is allowed to become "normal." We feel as if the tribes in Boorman's film live within a vacation destination or a zoo.It's also well-directed, but in the sensational way that Boorman seems to only know how. If you look at some of Boorman's other films, like "Zardoz" and "Excalibur", you'll see that he sort of lets actors do whatever they want, resulting in the more experienced actors totally dominating all the film's energy (arguably, in "Excalibur", that's part of the design of the film). Here, we have no real actors. While Boothe has a nice low-key demeanor, that only makes it more ridiculous when he grabs a machine gun and starts killing the "bad" natives like he was your average 80s action hero. It's somewhat of an admirable effort, considering how many other films you could see in the 80s that didn't offer the sort of escapist adventure, nor any of the message of this film -- however, it's deeply and intrinsically flawed and does not make up for in drama what it lacks in realism.
sukhan-22-768673
Pelo amor de deus, this movie is certainly one of the most racist and ethnocentric movies ever made. Hard to believe that it is from 1985 and not 1885. Boorman illustrated the average white "civilized" persons imagination of "primitive" tribes who by and large behave like a bunch of monkeys. Or, worse than that, cannibalistic monkeys who disguise like African zombies from another white mans fantasy. The acting is so poor and clumsy that it is almost comical, and, worst of all, the fake "Indian" language is just a slightly distorted English with even the exact same amount of syllables as the English sentence would have. This movie so utterly ridiculous - and discriminatory - that its stupid colonialist disdainfulness towards indigenous people almost completely destroys its somewhat ecological message.
Leofwine_draca
THE EMERALD FOREST sees John Boorman returning to the dark heart of the world's wildernesses in this story about native tribes living in the Amazon. Powers Boothe plays an engineer whose son is kidnapped by one such tribe, leading him on a ten-year search for answers.The film works on a double level. First, it stands as a completely adequate action-adventure, with all manner of violent shoot-outs, especially a climactic showdown that brings back memories of hard-hitting '70s greats like ROLLING THUNDER. There's suspense a-plenty, along with strong turns from both Boothe and the director's son.The film's storyline also allows Boorman to explore themes that are clearly close to his heart, namely the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest by greedy developers and loggers, who turn out to be the real villains of the piece. Yes, it sounds like it could be preachy but it never is, thanks to Boorman's skill at handling the material with subtlety and grace.THE EMERALD FOREST is virtually unknown today - I caught it tucked away in a late-night showing - but it doesn't deserve to be; DELIVERANCE is the better known effort but this comes close at frequent intervals.
dave-sturm
This movie supposedly sends an environmental message, and that's certainly true, but if you look closely it's really a fig leaf (like one of those little flaps on a string that constitute the sole bit of clothing worn by the villagers) for an updated Tarzan movie.That said, this movie is tremendous entertainment. It is exciting almost all the way through. And when it's slow, there are lots of cute teenage girls in the altogether to gaze at. In fact, there's a demographically striking abundance of teenage girls in this particular tribe.Favorite scene: During the courtship ritual, Tomme is given a club and is supposed "knock out" his girl in front of the villagers and then carry her off into the forest. She cowers. He hesitates, waves the club around. She glares at him and whispers, "Do it right!" So he hits her and she makes a show of being "knocked out." The whole courtship ritual is beautifully staged. I cannot attest to its authenticity, but it's perfectly clear as he "defends" her from menacing dudes, refuses to be carried off by the other girls, etc. The sheer enthusiasm portrayed is remarkable.Powers Boothe, playing a dam engineer, makes a dashing Trader Horn-type. He has a great scene when he wakes up in the village only to see his son, Tomme, sleeping peaceful and embracing his girl, both practically nude in the next hammock. The expressions that run across his face are priceless.The Fierce People live up to their name, but I am dubious that people who live in nature can be so infected with violence.I learned something. You can climb a high-rise by wrapping vines around your feet. Who knew? The dam business at the end was totally righteous, but, really, pretty preposterous.And how about that shot of the eagle in flight. Taken from about two feet away. Pretty neat.Terrific Hollywood movie? You bet. Werner Herzog? Not so much.
