Review of The Green Inferno (2013) by Douglas L — 25 Sep 2015

The Green Inferno is a massive misfire and doesn't deserve such a great title. From the beginning to the end Eli Roth shows his lack of control and direction of the material. It is hard to believe he has love for its predecessors. The script is laughable in its lack of subtlety, spoon-feeding its message. Its shock value, one reason why people went to see the film, unfortunately, does not deliver much.

It is in the characters where Eli Roth's Green Inferno by perchance takes a step in the right direction, for his own sick amusement, he manages to make every person in the film a deserving target of ridicule and feverish despair. The characters ironic lack of intelligence, passion, soul, or anything that would resemble something attractive works all too well. Having achieved this, Roth waters down the plot and violence to uncharacteristic levels leaving viewers disappointed and under provoked.

The cinematography is a mess as the depth of field is always so shallow that the subjects are rarely in focus for most of the film. The film is shot in the beauty of the Amazon and yet we are restricted from it as they choose to shoot few wide shots. Sequences of violence are shot in extreme close-ups so we have little connection to what the actions are actually occurring.

Over all there was little sense of dread throughout the picture which is what one might expect from a film with this provocative theme and title. It is a big bummer as I can imagine with the right director, this film could have been a great piece of cult cinema.