Combine Jack Ass: The Movie and the show Nature and you might think, “This is stupid,” but it works out to be hilarious. The new lowbrow humor flick from Happy Madison Productions, Strange Wilderness, encompasses the whole, so-wrong-it’s-so-funny” type of filmmaking.
Steve Zahn plays the son of a beloved nature show host who has passed on, and Zahn gets to carry the torch, which is closer to a lit match. Zahn’s character can’t carry it far though; the show’s ratings are in the toilet, and the timeslot it is slated for is usually reserved for the blurry-eyed infomercials in the wee hours of the morning.
The studio head tells them their show will be cancelled, but they get word that Bigfoot is out in the jungle. So what do they do? They go find it. Saying more would ruin the film.
“I laughed so hard when I read it … I was laughing because I just did Rescue Dawn,” Zahn said, explaining that when he first read the script, he was still in Hanoi shortly after finishing Rescue Dawn. This is fitting, since in Strange Wilderness he has to act like a complete idiot in a jungle, trying to get out, where as in Rescue Dawn he is a POW trying to get out of the jungle alive without starving to death or getting caught.
On the shooting of the film, Zahn commented, “Everyday it felt like a comedy marathon. As fun as they are, they are really difficult to shoot.” Zahn and all the other actors seemed to play off each other and it never felt like they tried too hard for the punch line. This is the quintessential American farce where people do stupid things and get away with it. Viewers of the film will be waiting for the gag-reel on the DVD for sure.
“We take a journey to the jungle and idiots get mauled by animals,” said Allen Covert, the actor who plays the sound guy in the film. Covert is with the Happy Madison people; he usually appears with Adam Sandler, and in fact was Sandler’s roommate at New York University. Covert said that during the filming the director would say, “screw the plot, lets go this route, this was funny,” and they would adlib.
Covert commented on how they would watch nature shows for inspiration for Strange Wilderness. They used actual footage from those nature shows in the film, adding their humorous narrations about bears, sharks and gazelles.
If you want to get simple humor, have a cheap laugh and forget about the outside world, then this film is for you. Sure there are more poignant stories on film out there, but laughter promotes youth and energy. Have fun. And by the way, Zahn’s relationship with a certain turkey is just priceless.