Strange Wilderness (2008)

Director:

Fred Wolf

Writers (WGA):

Peter Gaulke (written by) &
Fred Wolf (written by)

Release Date:

1 February 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

This ain't March of the Penguins.

Plot:

With the ratings dropping for a wilderness-themed TV show, two animal fans go to the Andes in search of Bigfoot.

Plot Keywords:

Bigfoot | TV Show | Friend | Ecuador | Shark Attack

Cast

Steve Zahn	...	Peter
Allen Covert	...	Fred
Jonah Hill	...	Cooker
Kevin Heffernan	...	Whitaker
Ashley Scott	...	Cheryl
Peter Dante	...	Danny Gutierrez
Harry Hamlin	...	Sky Pierson
Robert Patrick	...	Gus Hayden
Joe Don Baker	...	Bill Calhoun
Blake Clark	...	Dick
Justin Long	...	Junior
Jeff Garlin	...	Ed Lawson
Ernest Borgnine	...	Milas
Jake Abel	...	Conservationist
Kevin Alejandro	...	Hispanic Man #1

MPAA:

Rated R for non-stop language, drug use, crude and sexual humor.

Runtime:

USA:87 min | Argentina:87 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #42934) | Ireland:16 | UK:15 | Canada:16+ (Québec) | Canada:18A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | Philippines:R-13 (MTRCB) | Singapore:M18 | Netherlands:12 | Australia:MA | New Zealand:R16 | Germany:16 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Pelican Productions LLC (I)

Trivia:

The two main characters are named after the film's screenwriters.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Peter and Fred's teeth are knocked out on the hood of the Hispanic man's car, Fred's mustache falls off.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Peter Gaulke: [talking on phone] Look at my dad. He was the king. I mean, no matter what happened, I mean he was as cool as a cucumber. He never forgot a line, and he never let anything ruffle him. My dad was the king. No doubt. And his TV show ruled the ratings.
[lights up weed]
Peter Gaulke: What was that?
[coughs while getting high]
Peter Gaulke: Excuse me. It was a wildlife show called Strange Wilderness. Oh, you remember that? Do you remember my dad? Oh cool. Yeah, then he died and then I took over the show, then it went all to hell. I mean, I'm nothing like my dad. Nothing at all. I don't know. I don't know if it was like I wasn't bright enough, or I didn't work hard enough, or I used to smoke a lot of dope. So...

Movie Connections:

References "Mister Ed" (1961)

Soundtrack:

Maggie

Strange Wilderness is inexplicable, it is an absolutely awful film but yet it is still somewhat funny and made me smile. Don't ask me why.

There is only one plot line I can extract from my experience watching Strange Wilderness. It is mildly about a wilderness animal TV show hosted by a guy named Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn). He and his demented crew (Allen Covert, Jonah Hill, Ashley Scott, Justin Long e.t.c.) find out that the ratings for their 3 A.M. show have dropped drastically. They have two weeks before their show gets the boot, and they have to find a way to keep it on the air. Peter's friend Milas (Ernest Borgnine...Making a quick cha-ching) suggests he knows where Bigfoot lives within the Andes wild, so the team decides to track the mysterious creature as a last hope to save the show. While on the road they run into one ludicrous obstacle after another, but keep going anyway. That really just about wraps it up in the "plot" department.

Strange Wilderness is an awful film in reality. The plot is thinner than a microscopic germ, the acting is either drug-induced or just absolutely atrocious with no real effort (I'm leaning towards drug-induced). The film itself is tastelessly shot in any possible way. They were in the wilderness for 90% of the film, they could have thrown in at least a few nice artsy shots of trees or something, but I guess that was a no-no. And don't even get me started on the continuity because there is virtually no continuity to critique. What other negative things can I say about Strange Wilderness. Oh that's right, how in the world could I forget this big detail, the filmmakers sure did. Strange Wilderness does not seem to have a script. Instead the actors seem to sit around after being told a basic outline of what to talk about. Then they just ad-lib away until the scene is over, and most of that screen time they don't follow that basic outline in any way imaginable. If there was any sort of script to this movie, I'm guessing Jack Daniels or Captain Morgan wrote it. Who knows maybe somebody dropped a lit joint on the screenplay and it went up in flames, and everyone around was too high to do a rewrite.

But Strange Wilderness was funny at times, there I said it. Despite all the horrendous effort that went into making this flimsy far-below-low-brow comedy, it was the actors having "high" and mighty fun that made the film watchable. Justin Long for instance is at his worst here as a one dimensional stoner, but he still manages to give us a few chuckles just because of how random and stupid he is acting on screen. There is one funny scene in which he has tattooed eyes on his eyelids, and the team wakes him up from sleeping and he scares all of them. Although the tattoos were magically gone in the next scene, I guess Justin Long must have found them in a box of cracker jacks and suggested it as a gag. Steve Zahn is a very talented actor with movies like Joy Ride, Rescue Dawn, and even You've Got Mail. But in Strange Wilderness he too is at his seemingly deliberate worst. As the host of a wilderness TV show his character Peter is bad, as is the show where you can actually hear Steve Zahn stutter and pause as he thinks of what to say next. The half-assed ad-libbing is hilarious. I've never seen a movie with as little effort as Strange Wilderness, and because everyone involved doesn't try to hide that fact we can actually laugh at the film.

Steve Zahn, Justin Long, Jonah Hill, and even Ernest Borgnine were most likely all stoned in the making of this movie. This movie was probably shot for their own amusement and then somehow made its way into movie theaters. I don't know how they got that accomplished, but I guess the Happy Madison crew have their ways. The movie is very bad but I would prefer it any day of the week before I ever watched dreck like Epic Movie or Meet the Spartans again. At least this movie had a few fine actors having a stoned good time. In the end I give Strange Wilderness a 1.5 out of 4 because it is an awful film. But for a one time viewing it was a little amusing in a half-assed way.