Jacaré

This documentary follows a group of adventurers into the Amazon jungle to catch animals to be shipped to zoo's in the USA. The ease in which the hunters catch the animals and how quickly they become tame once in captivity indicates most of the footage shot in this film was rehearsed. One sequence where one of the adventurers battles a boa constrictor is obviously staged. One scene the narrator describes a caiman as an alligator, even though alligators are native to Florida and China and not Brazil. The title comes from the local word for caiman, in which the film describes as the "terror of the Amazon." This is quite an exaggeration, while any large member of the order crocodilia is potentially dangerous, it is the true crocodile that is responsible for most man eatings in South America and not species of the caiman family.

"Jacaré" is a bad documentary for quite a few reasons. It's dull, it has no dialog...just bad and ofen silly narration, and it's too often factually incorrect.

The story is supposed to be about an expedition to the Brazilian jungle to gather specimins for various zoos. However, occasionally they feature animals that simply are NOT from South America--such as the alligator and the buffalo. What's also terrible is that the narration isn't the least bit scientific and is meant to scare audiences instead of informing. Often the narration is also just plain dumb, such as when it says of one creature "these little creatures don't like anyone...even themselves!". Overall, dull and crammed with misinformation...enough to make biologists have heart palpitations!!

By the way, among the many 'facts' you hear about is that the black jaguar is '1 in 10,000'. Actually, the black version make up about 6% of all jaguars...1 in about 16-17 jaguars.