Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

King of the Jungle is a film about Seymour (John Leguizamo), a mentally challenged 25-year-old Latino man growing up in New York with his mother Mona (Julie Carmen) and her live-in-lover Joann (Rosie Perez). Mona engages in activist activities against police brutality. During a rally a police officer gets shot and Seymour witnesses the death of the officer.

Seymour’s father Jack has long left Mona and spends his time reading poetry. He swears that Seymour is not mentally disabled but just a ‘hustler’ who just pretends to be ‘stupid’ so he doesn’t have to leave home and can continue the easy life. He encourages Seymour to stop playing dumb, get a place of his own and bring some broads up there and bang them while Seymour tries to talk to his dad about the things that affect him, but Jack is not capable of dealing with Seymour on his level.

Living as a young Latino man in an aggressive setting of shootings, small-time hustlers, protest rallies and activist meetings at his home, no father and a mother now living in a lesbian relationship is difficult enough. To be mentally challenged in that environment is even harder.

Seymour’s life is complicated beyond his disability by the inconsiderate way he is being treated by other people. His father who keeps talking him down as someone pretending to be stupid; a drug addicted hooker Mermaid, played by Annabella Sciora (Jungle Fever) rubbing him sexually to talk him out of some drug money; folks on the court laughing at him or forcing him to say obscene things about his mother and himself, a box cutter held to his throat; a street friend trying to entice him to fight for himself, teaching this man at the mental level of an 11-year-old how to use a gun.

One day, a young man barges into the home and shoots Mona in front of Seymour, prompting him to run away from home. Seymour has known the boy for years and now wants to go out and shoot the boy. As he tries to find help with his hustler friend Francis (Michael Rapaport), Francis gets dragged off by the police himself. Seymour is now on his own in the streets with the cart of sales goods the hustler left behind. He essentially turns into the typical “crazy homeless guy in the street.” When encountering the killer in the street, Seymour can not express what happened and only retracts in fear as the young man confronts him and severely beats him until he’s being pulled off by bystanders.

Flashbacks during this time on his own remind him of his mother saying that she won’t put him into a ‘home for crazy people’, that he’ll always be with her. “As long as I’m here, you’re here.” Another thing she said was that it’s safer to stay inside the home, because “outside, people get shot.” An ironic statement Seymour tries to deal with, as much as his mother telling him that he shouldn’t have to resort to violence to defend himself, as he holds the gun his friend had hidden but foolishly told him where.

King of the Jungle is being criticized a lot; “the various actors are playing out their own story; who’d show a handicapped man how to use a gun and where it’s hidden?” The silliest complaint about this movie had to be that it has become tiresome to see Leguizamo re-enacting the contorted spasms of a mentally challenged man as before seen in Charly, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or Awakenings once again.

If you can name 3, even 5 other films on the same subject and find that we’ve seen enough, you obviously haven’t paid attention to the rest of the film trade when Sweet November or Kate and Leopold mark the 1000st romance comedy in the making.

As for “who’d show a mentally challenged man how to use a gun?” Well, probably the same kind of people who allowed the handicapped man at my job to hop into their truck and crash it, not having a license, or took him to get lap dances in San Francisco. The amusement some people find in treating a mentally disabled person as a pet or child may not always be mean-spirited in its intend, but it certainly isn’t helpful to the person.

As for the actors doing each their own story: all the characters have one agenda or the other, but in the end it all leads back to Seymour and their expectations of him or the way their lives are being impacted by his handicap.

This isn’t a coming-of-age story, because Seymour can never get to any other age, level of understanding or new insights on how to deal with things. He is mentally handicapped, he is set in his ways, and he can’t do much other than trying to find a way to somehow fit the events into his world.

CAST AND CHARACTERS:

Mona is played by Julie Carmen who also acted in the previously reviewed Kiss me a Killer. In King of the Jungle, she’s worn-out, stressed and aggressive and she looks the part. Whether it’s real life or just pretend for the film, her lived look is actually a refreshing counterpart to the generally perfected looks of actresses, which applies to every other female character in this film.

It’s no wonder Mona is worn-out – her husband left her with a mentally challenged son, she has to defend her lesbian lifestyle and has the same relationship problems as anybody else on top, and she’s trying to fight for justice for the young men and women in her community. Constant worries about the police busting in on one of her activist meetings, an open-wound attitude about the constant hints that maybe she should just send Seymour off to an institution and having to explain things to Seymour that are difficult enough to explain to any child, let alone a 25-year-old child add to the burden.

It’s difficult to ever warm up to Mona. Her life has made her so hard-edged that she can only soften up when dealing with Seymour, the only times she redeems herself somewhat in the eyes of the audience. Her death did not evoke much pity for her but more for all those around her suffering for it.

Joann, Mona’s girlfriend, is played by Rosie Perez; unlike in most other films she starred in, Perez takes a step back in this one and plays the soft-spoken partner of the more aggressive Mona. Joann implores “you’re not going to yell?” before she dares to speak her mind on subjects like Seymour’s upbringing, but she’s also fiercely loyal to Seymour, trying everything to find him after he’s run off.

Cliff Gorman plays Jack, Seymour’s father, who, contrary to Mona, is actually the real jerk in this family but can’t quite be hated, either. He doesn’t know how to deal with the situation put before him – his own poetry translated into dozens of languages, he’s considered a very talented man, and his son appears to be a ‘retard’ – a word Jack only objects to when it comes from someone else, and only because he wants it clarified that his son is just fine, only been labeled by low test scores, or only a hustler trying to get a free ride.

Michael Rapaport is the most sympathetic character of all. As Francis, the street vendor, he truly tries to help Seymour, even if his ideas of showing Seymour how to use a gun and defend himself are misguided. Was it not for him being pulled off by the very same police he wanted Seymour to go to about his mother’s murder rather than to exact vigilante justice, things may have gone down less painful for Seymour.

The one character that truly was completely over-the-top was Melissa Tomei’s portrayal of Detective Costello. Every word uttered was an attack full of attitude and self-righteousness. Costello has no respect for anybody and her investigation of the murder is limited to accusing Joann or Seymour’s father, right after telling them that many cops don’t mourn Mona’s passing.

IN CLOSING:

The solution of the film is a little stumbled-upon; while the drama between Seymour and his father comes to a climax, Detective Costello takes care of the killer in a sort of side-note, and it’s perfectly timed to a point where Seymour and his father never even get interrupted by the solution.

King of the Jungle is gritty, fast and thought provoking. Of course, one can always find something to nag about and critics have chosen to do so, but the film deserves a lot more attention than many are willing to grant it. It shows the less glamorous and romantic side of a large city the way films like New Jack City, Colors or Training Day did, only that it doesn’t focus on drug dealings and only slightly touches the topic of bad cops, but instead focuses on a handicapped man and those caring for him, trying to deal with an extreme situation. It also focuses very little on the racial aspect, although the majority of the cast is Latin.

The score to King of the Jungle is rap and hip-hop, dark and hard-edged for the most part, and very befitting to the film. It looms, underscores and threatens, matching with the situations it is used in, and rounds out the film rather than simply play along with it.

King of the Jungle is definitely not for a young or overly sensitive audience. The mistreatment of Seymour by those around him is sometimes harsh: forcing him to say obscenities or being beat up are as strong in their impact as Leguizamo’s overall portrayal of Seymour. His difficulties to express himself at times or the obvious struggle in understanding/dealing with an extreme situation can be as cruel to watch as any physical abuse.

Overall, though, this film doesn’t deserve to be criticized to the point where it comes across as just a vehicle for Leguizamo to show a deeper side than his character in films like The Pest.

The only thing bringing this film down is Melissa Tomei's acting and the ending and technically, I'd give this four and a half stars, but since I have to chose, I'll leave it at 5.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age