The trailers promising a movie about a serial killer in the vein of Jack the Ripper are a croc. There’s no Dahmer or Lecter, just cold-blooded Gustave making a dent in the population of Burundi. The freak of nature with a taste for man is nothing new, though Gustave’s an allegedly true phenom. To give the croc a story to bite into, a tabloid TV crew heads to Africa to capture the rampaging reptile. You don’t see much of Gus, and when you do, the FX are subpar; instead, the crew get ensnared in skirmishes between government troops and a Hutu warlord. In between, there are some extraneous reflections about nature’s revenge, slavery, Western inaction in Africa, and even Frankenstein. These come from Orlando Jones as the trusty cameraman, but when the throttle’s open, the action is more tired than tense. Add to that director Michael Katleman’s herky-jerky style and the experience is kind of a cinematic death roll.
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