Jungle (2000)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Ram Gopal Varma

Writers:

Jaideep Sahaney (writer)
Jaideep Sahni (story)

Release Date:

14 July 2000 (India)

Genre:

Action | Romance

Tagline:

It took his love...

Plot:

Where beasts feared to tread, he made it his home; Where the scorching sun could not reach, he shined in the cold bloodedness...

Awards:

6 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Sunil Shetty	...	Commander Shivraj
Fardeen Khan	...	Siddhu (Siddharth Sharma)
Urmila Matondkar	...	Anu Malhotra
Sushant Singh	...	Durga Narayan Chaudhary
Kashmira Shah	...	Bali (Terrorist)
Rajpal Yadav	...	Sippa (Terrorist)
Raju Kher	...	Mr. Malhotra
Himanshu Malik
Avtar Gill	...	Minister
Makrand Deshpande	...	Dorai Swamy (Madrasi)
Manmeer Singh	...	Durga's henchman
Vijay Raaz
Swati Chitnis	...	Mrs. Malhotra
Anil Yadav	...	Bhura
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sanjay Kumar	...	Phuda
Manmeet Singh	...	Sardar - Wife gets killed by kidnappers
Dinesh Thakkerr	...	Arrogant husband - Kidnapped passengers

Runtime:

UK:146 min

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

India:A | UK:15

Company:

Varma Corporation

Trivia:

The role of Durga Narayan Chaudhary was actually based on a real life bandit Veerapan

Technically excellent, but hampered by poor screenplay....

Jungle features some outstanding cinematography by Vijay Arora. Shot in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio with a wide angle camera lens, it does of stunning job of capturing the ambiance of the jungle, including wildlife. It also features some fine performances by Urmila and the "bad guys", including Vijay Raaz who is especially memorable. In contrast, I thought that Sunil Shetty was passable at best and IMO he's too soft faced to play a cop obsessed with tracking down his arch foe.

Ram Gopal Verma does a fine job of creating suspense and some scenes in the jungle are especially gut wrenching. However, he too is hampered by the commercial considerations of Bollywood cinema and the ill placed songs -- which border on the absurd at times -- don't help matters any.

The film's biggest let down is its screenplay, which cannot decide whether it wants to be romance story or a gritty thriller. The characters seem to engage in downright silly behaviour even when faced with life threatening situations. The villain's actions are inexplicable and some things seem to have been written with the express purpose of driving the storyline forward.

That said, considering the trash that Bollywood churns out, this is certainly one of the better films and Verma should be commended for trying to break the narrow formulaic cinematic mould.