Jungleland (2020)
Directed by Max Winkler
Stanley manages his boxer brother Lion but when a devastating loss in the ring leaves the pair in debt, an opportunity to recoup the cash leads to a series of misadventures that threaten to break the bond between them.
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What critics compared Jungleland to
Jungleland echos a number of other works, from something like Warrior to even the songs of Bruce Springsteen.
This may inevitably recall the fairly recent likes of “The Fighter” and “Warrior,” excellent movies with other fine lead actors that likewise tipped hat to the gritty ’70s cinema of “Fat City” and “Rocky” — which in turn cast a critical yet longing gaze back to palooka dramas from Hollywood’s golden age.
It’s a bit rusty at the start and suffers from stilted dialogue, but it soon finds its footing and adds up to being a solid companion piece to 2011’s Warrior , also about the emotional scars exchanged between brothers.
The underdog narrative will seem overly familiar to anyone that’s recently watched “Warrior” or “The Fighter” follows two brothers - one a talented on-the-rise boxer and the other his screwed up trainer – as they end up in the small textile town of Fall River, Massachusetts barely making enough cash influx to fuel their next big trek.
And it could find a moderate audience theatrically, although the surface similarities with pictures that deal with fraternal relationships and boxing (Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior and David O’Russell’s The Fighter are recent examples) means that it might not be distinctive enough to break out commercially.