Jungleland: Familiar But Well-Composed

Jungleland is not really a boxing movie. It is a quiet interpersonal drama in which its characters happen to love boxing, and those hoping for or even expecting something Creed-flavored will probably be disappointed. However, more patient souls willing to invest in what it wants to do may just walk away pleased, because the spectacular performances and intense focus on these characters' relationships make it a genuinely respectable character drama. This movie is about Walter “Lion” Kaminski and his brother Stanley, impoverished underground boxers tasked by a crime lord with transporting a young woman named Sky out west, as the brothers are already headed to San Francisco, in hopes of participating in a notorious underground prizefight with a massive cashout called, you guessed it, Jungleland. This is a surprisingly restrained piece that is more interested in why these brothers hit other people for a living than it is in the fact that they do. It is also imperfect and formulaic, but elevated by wonderful acting and a mature willingness never to make more of itself than it is.

This movie is more about the Kaminskis themselves than what they do for a wad of cash, and the men are brilliantly acted by Charlie Hunnam and Jack O'Connell, arrogantly boisterous as only an athlete celebrated for their capacity for violence can be. Both they and most of the other characters in this movie almost bounce on the balls of their feet every time they talk, injecting it with a sense of urgency that makes it feel like something could go wrong, like somebody could fly off the handle and start hitting people at a moment’s notice. After all, boxers and the crowds they run with aren’t known for having the best temper control. The one exception is Sky, a quiet girl who some shady people want transported for shady reasons, and her pained vulnerability is a bright spot in an otherwise bleary movie. This vulnerability is pained because it is constantly in danger. This girl has seen a lot, and both her performance and the others drip with emotional authenticity while avoiding melodrama, yet she is the only character in this movie who stands to be negatively influenced by the cruel, unfair world she lives in. 

Both brothers are fighters, and their relationship could be compared to Jonathan and David's, as close as you can get to beyond platonic. Their love for each other is obvious, and it made me think about how I could be spending more time with my own brothers than I actually do. Rarely has a movie captured a brotherly relationship so intimately, though Lion and Sky's blossoming romance can sometimes get overshadowed by the Kaminski brothers' deep care for each other. This movie’s main focus is its characters, and individually, they are treated with all the respect they deserve and then some. They feel like real people, and you care about what happens to them because of it. 

The boxing matches in this movie are interestingly restrained. In so many other boxing and fighting movies, you’ll hear and feel a WHOOSH and a WHAP with each punch that lands, but that’s not the case here. These fights feel painful without feeling like they’re begging you to wince, and I think this restraint serves the movie's quieter, more personal nature well. It escapes the bigger-is-better stereotypes before falling into the arms of other ones associated with seedier crime dramas, as too much of it is built around familiar tropes that smell like men in tank tops with guns strapped to them, making sure that the Kaminski brothers can keep their end of a bargain. Basically, too many of the movie's biggest, most fundamental elements are borrowed from elsewhere.

Another problem in Jungleland is that it’s a series of small problems confined to each scene, few of which flow into what comes after in any meaningful way. This movie begins to lose steam the longer it runs on, and some of the character drama seems to come out of nowhere when the scenes don’t build on what came before. It’s kind of like this movie is walking on a treadmill without realizing it. But in spite of its flaws, few can deny that Jungleland is a beautiful movie to look at on a fundamental level. It’s a very well-lit, well-shot portrait of everything from seedy, abandoned houses to the most expensive hotel rooms money can buy, and it’s detailed and calm in a way that feels small and intimate. Indeed, much of this movie looks wall-calendar worthy. This is not the happiest or most peaceful movie of all time, and that makes its undeniable beauty and serenity ironic.

Jungleland doesn’t always have the tenacity or creativity to fend off all-too-familiar genre cliches, but it’s a well-made, well-acted movie with heart to spare and a firm understanding that bigger, louder, and flashier is not always better. It chooses to keep itself in check and to forgo boisterous action sequences that would have detracted from the quiet, intimate tone it wants so desperately to capture. What we are left with is a story about two brothers and the lengths they will go to for each other. Jungleland is not asking you to share it on social media, and it is not trying to turn its release into a media firestorm. It is a movie meant to be quietly discovered by both those who have yet to see it and those who are already watching it.

Jungleland – 7/10

1 Peter 1:22-25