Review: Strange Wilderness

Steve Zahn stars as Peter Gaulke, the son of a semi-famous wildlife TV show presenter who has tried to carry on the show that he has inherited. Unfortunately, he did not inherit his father’s talent and the show is awful and struggling in the ratings, near cancellation. But Zahn gets a call from a somewhat reliable source (Joe Don Baker) who says that he has a map that leads to the location of the White Whale of wildlife discoveries: Bigfoot. So with his equally incompetent crew in tow, they make a dash to Baker’s cabin, hoping to get to Bigfoot before Zahn’s smug and more high-profile rival Harry Hamlin does. Needless to say, the journey is full of mishaps, misadventure, shark and piranha attacks, penis-biting turkeys, and general incompetence. Zahn’s crew are played by Jonah Hill (with an awful Cajun-ish accent), Justin Long (as a weed-smoking idiot), Allen Covert (as the sound guy and co-producer), Peter Dante (who was one of the dopey head-bangers in “Little Nicky”), and yes, Ernest Freakin’ Borgnine, as the loyal cameraman. Ashley Scott and Kevin Heffernan play two new additions to the crew, Blake Clark plays a guide named Dick, and Robert Patrick turns up as a psychotic, intensely humourless ex-soldier.

This 2008 Fred Wolf (a former “SNL” writer who also wrote “Without a Paddle” and the disappointing “Joe Dirt”) comedy gets terrible reviews and isn’t always on-target (Long’s stoner character is a flop), but the cast is mostly good and there were a lot more laughs in it than I was expecting. But then, I’m the guy that likes “Little Nicky” better than 95% of the rest of the Happy Madison productions. Adam Sandler’s company produced this film too, hence the appearance of Sandler regulars Dante, Covert, and Clark.

The comedy isn’t brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, but Zahn is ideal, and the incompetence of his TV show is pretty damn funny, especially in the scenes where he’s meeting with bemused TV exec Jeff Garlin. Zahn’s asinine, moronically earnest, often factually wrong narration on these docos is hysterical (Example: ‘These birds are saying howdy to the zebra. Actually, they're not saying howdy. They're eating the shit out of him’). And y’know what? Some of the lamest, basest gags were the ones I found funniest. The jokes concerning poor Clark’s name, were hilarious to me (If you thought “Funny People” had too many ‘dick’ jokes, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’), especially when we get to the big punchline involving man-eating fish. God help me, even the turkey scene made me laugh, gross-out gag that it may well have been.

Scripted by Wolf and fellow “SNL” alum Peter Gaulke (who named two of the main characters after themselves), you won’t remember much of it in the morning, but if you have low expectations, this film might surprise you nonetheless. I’m really surprised it languished so long on the shelf (around two years) before being released. There’s much worse crap out there getting wider releases.

Rating: C+