The Brutal River (2005) Horror Crocodile

The Brutal River (2005) - Khoht phetchakhaat (original title) From Thailand comes this story of a small village on a river terrorized by a man eating crocodile. It starts as a really romanticized ideal place. The people are simple and farm palm or fish the river to fill there lives. It really establishes how the river is essential to everyday life, from travel to industry to food it is all encompassing. Like a lot of Thai movies the film tries to capture the innocence of a time when life was simple and present it as a better life than modern living. Family is important and romance are slow and gentle affairs where both people fall in love through conversation and holding hands. Nong (Chamnong) and Chuan are brother and friends and with the cop are a family that cares about each other. When the Chuan was refused entry into the military Nong enlisted and fulfilled his brothers dream. It is a quickly but well drawn story giving us a setup for the film to come. Mixed with this happy feeling cinema is cuts to the stalking crocodile making the river unsafe. He gets another old man in a boat and then onshore a dog. Early there is Crocodile to human violence show on screen a flirting swimmer has his legs chomped off in front of the girls he was trying to get to know.
   Warning everyone off the river can work for a while but  the old man who sells noodles from his boat does not get the memo and is the next victim of the beast. Now the Aughts CGI attacks are not very impressive but the film does a good job of making it a story of a village in peril. At first not everyone agrees there is a creature, even after seeing it the stories only spread word of mouth and many people choose not to believe. Still some believers band together and with machetes and rifle head into the palm jungle looking to kill the beast. They find a great mud bed and know the beast is gigantic. While the sub district chief and his men ready things to hunt and kill the crocodile there is the village fool organizing his own hunt because there is a 3000 Bhat reward for killing it.  They all end up out there at the same tie in tiny little boats.In the film they say alligator, translated of course but as far as I know there are only crocodiles in Thailand so I am going to keep using that term to talk about the creature.
   The hunt goes as poorly as small boats will allow. When the Crocodile comes everyone realizes that they are over matched and there is a mad rush to get off the river. They are all in little hollowed out boats and the crocodile is like three times the size of the largest. It is a tense dash to the shore and the last of them barely makes it. This slows down the hunt by the village as they are not sur how to kill such a big threat. They next try praying including leaving a couple religious types praying on the shore of the river. When our main characters start losing loved ones you just have to turn to your Gods. The voodoo like ritual performed which should bind the viscous beast but all it really did was allow the Crocodile a free meal of the priest. Not learning from this first mistake they next bring in a Khmer Witch doctor with strong talismans. He also has TNT so the villagers are more confident in his approach. This ends the same as the first. This time though the croc is looking for revenge and knocks a bunch of villagers off a dock blood in the water is all that is left of those who did not make it to shore.
  Now the military is called in to deal with the issue, and the reverence shown upon their arrival is something to see. Cheering villagers and the score to romanticize them. I wonder how much self censoring is going on with the film makers where they laud the military as saviors and the political appointees as trusted leaders. This mixed with the obvious romanticizing of the simple old way of life leads me to think that there is something going on.
  The military kill a crocodile but it appears to be the wrong one. Too small and not fat enough there is still a problem. The crocodile ups the ante first getting lovely Pikul, the girl liked by the cop and then getting Chuan the family is devastated. The personal vengeance hunt is on, led by Nong. The village bands together and builds a place in the river to trap and kill the beast. Requesting explosives and machine guns from the military  but bureaucracy interferes. Eventually though they get what they need and he is ready for a hunt.. Unfortunately things sort of fall apart in the film. What should be the final battle goes on with failed attempts and the more we see of the creature the more comical it gets. Eventually someone sacrifices themselves to blow up the crocodile and saves the village.  The appendix dialog at the end explains how after this incident there was a massive hunt and over 300 more crocodiles were killed making the swamp areas safe.
  So what did I think? Well this film was fine, certainly not high in production value but they were trying to tell a heart felt story. Would I recommend it? Probably but only because it is a very foreign film without the bells and whistles of an American movie making. So do with that what you will. I think it adds another kind of flavor to this reptilian buffet I am eating.