Pretty Good

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

A Major Disappointment

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I haven't actually finished the film. You may say that in this case I have no right to review it, especially so negatively. But I do, only because I stopped it on account of I couldn't watch anymore...I got over halfway, and I only got there by promising myself something good was just around the corner. This film is so tiresome, so lackluster that I was actually insulted. I haven't read many of the other reviews, so I'm not sure if there are other homosexual teens who have suffered through it, but I am homosexual, and I did go through "similar" revelations, day dreams, issues etc etc. There were maybe two moments where I actually felt this film could go somewhere, where I felt it may have some inkling of meaning, or relativity, but these hopes were dashed the moment the next set of cliché-ridden narration came on. I mean, just look at the quotes on the IMDb page. Unfortunately you're not able to hear the scratchy play back, nor the echo-ey fades if you're just read the quotes, because they are just too painful/ridiculous/stupid to miss. I did give the film three stars, and all three of those stars go to the films cinematographer who did a fantastic job attempting to transform Archer's tired "concepts" into something watchable. Mind you, I pray he wasn't the one who decided to include all the long shots of TV closeups...another unnecessary cliché already over done in films such as Korine's Gummo... I think it is extremely fitting that this film premiered at Sundance (only because Archer had connections in the festival via volunteer work he did, by the way...) because Sundance seems to be the one festival where cliché heavy drivel like this is still accepted as "arthouse". No, it's not art house, I'm afraid it's just plain s**t-house. Do not watch.

I'm kind of on the fence with this film. While I found the visuals to be interesting, the actor, Malcolm Stumpf, to be really good, and the concept pretty interesting, I found the film to be pretty hollow. The film is pretty much about this kid who basically is going through that awkward stage in which he isn't totally sure who he is and what he feels and, as a result, makes some mistakes. This concept can be effective when done right. Look at WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE or L.I.E. This film, WILD TIGERS I HAVE KNOWN, in a way, works. It works in it's awkward staging of events and works in creating an isolated world in which this kid doesn't really seem to have anybody that he can personally relate to. However, the film is also extremely lifeless. There isn't any kind of energy to the scenes and the tone, not even sad energy. The whole film has plenty of opportunities to explore these little events in an interesting way and only halfheartedly does. The kid may or may not be gay, but he never really seems to care either way. Maybe if the film had allowed him to show some sort of feelings toward his own-self then it would have been a more interesting film to watch. I applaud the filmmakers for crafting this together, considering the subject matter. I understand that teenage sexuality is a difficult topic to explore and craft a film out of. However, the film just doesn't seem to try to even explore the idea in any way. Sure, one could say that WILD TIGERS I HAVE KNOWN is honest, but that's only because it doesn't take any chances trying something new. It's so weird because the character of Logan reminded me a lot of myself when I was his age, but I was unable to relate to him. He struck me as boring, as a matter of fact, which is more than I could say about myself at the time. Perhaps I'm just trying to find things wrong with the film, and in all honesty it isn't a bad film by any means. It just seems like a missed opportunity to me. I know that it's possible to make something out of this concept. I just feel that twice as much effort would have helped it a lot more.

I see that someone already thought of a similar analogy, which was similar to the first thing that came to mind after I watched this movie. They said that the ingredients were there but there was no plot. Besides the sexual scenes which bordered on child-porn (which I feel could have been edited out or been presented more suggestively in nature rather than graphically, I would liken this movie to a recipe that's been torn in half. It's kind of like being handed a list of ingredients, with no directions on how to put them together into a finished product. From the start, character development and story development are lacking...unfortunately, many times in this monotonous drivel we are teased with bits of plot and we think "Ahh-OK...finally we are going to find out something more about WHY this scene is going on...or...WHO this character is...or maybe we are finally going to get to know and appreciate this character more...or understand and get involved more with this inter-character relationship...etc." But no such luck! On the contrary, many times I was tempted to just turn it off more than once but stuck it out when the carrot was dangled, only to find that whatever mini-plot within whatever mini-plot (and that poorly presented) was just a ruse. Why I stayed with it till the end is a mystery, other than usually IFC has better selections and they gave it 2-1/2 stars (another mystery). It's not that the characters aren't likable to SOME degree, or that you can't identify with them or their humanness at all...it's just that this could have been so much better with just a little more effort. I notice this was shot around Santa Cruz and find myself wondering if it was someone's film school project. I wish I could have given this a better review but honestly it was a frustrating and disappointing waste of an hour and a half.

"Wild Tigers I have Known." It will only be showing in big cities, to be sure. It is one of those films SO artsy, that it makes no sense what so ever, except to the director! I HATE those! And all of those oh-so-alternative/artsy people try DESPERATELY to find "metaphors" in what is EVIDENT horseshit.There was NO plot, no story, no moral, no chronology, and nothing amusing or even touching. To me, it was a bunch of scenes thrown together that had nothing to do with one another, and were all for "show" to show how "artsy" and "visual" they could get. It was an ATTEMPT at yet ANOTHER teen angst film, but missed the mark on every level humanly possible. Then the credits roll! I was waiting for it to make SENSE! I was waiting for "the good part." I own about 60 independent films in my DVD collection, many of which could arguably be called "art house" films. This will NOT be amongst them. You will be very angry at yourself for paying to see this film, much less ever buying it on DVD.