The Lost City of Z

Before the film's title and Brad Pitt's executive producer credit mislead you into thinking that "The Lost City of Z" is a zombie movie -- associated, one might suppose, with an earlier Pitt project, the fast zombie flick "World War Z" -- you need to know that this is a period piece, based on a true story, about a British military officer with an interest in archaeology.

It's a rich subject in general, and this story in particular has been subjected to much ink and plenty of celluloid. Archaeological sites and other clues in Central and South America point to sophisticated civilizations having thrived in those regions well before the arrival of the Europeans. A more recent mystery -- though one that's still associated with those more ancient ones -- is the question of what happened to British explorer Percy Fawcett, his eldest son Jack, and a third explorer, Jack's friend Raleigh Rimell.

Writer-director James Gray -- working from a book on the subject by The New Yorker writer David Grann -- dramatizes Fawcett's life and his obsessive quest to discover an ancient city, dubbed "Z" by Fawcett, which the explorer presumed to have long been lost to the green shroud of the Amazonian jungle.

Fawcett is played by British actor Charlie Hunnam, who is perhaps most familiar to American audiences from his five-year stint starring on the FX series "Sons of Anarchy." (Gay viewers might also remember his turn in the original U.K. version of "Queer As Folk.") Hunnam portrays Fawcett with a convincing combination of curiosity and bravado; he's sympathetic to the view -- unpopular in his time -- that the natives inhabiting the jungle are smart and sophisticated in ways the British simply don't comprehend. The reason for Fawcett's relative open-mindedness is that he has been a victim, himself, of British snobbery. It turns out (as one stuffed shirt puts it) that Fawcett was "unfortunate in his choice of ancestors," a delicate way of referring to his father's socially unacceptable conduct. (Evidently the elder Fawcett liked drink and gambling.)

A career military man, Percy Fawcett is passed over time and again for promotion, despite his competence and sterling record. When he's offered a risky -- but politically vital -- map-making assignment in the jungles of South America, he accepts the task with a view to rehabilitating his family's name, and therefore his own prospects. His wife Nina (Sienna Miller), an independent thinker and tough person in her own right, accepts his choice cheerfully, despite being newly pregnant with their first child. Into the jungle Fawcett goes, accompanied by his scrappy aide-de-camp, Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson), who knows the dangers of the jungle all too well. When Fawcett returns, several years later, it's to great acclaim -- and with the controversial idea that complex civilizations once existed in South America, civilizations that may even have pre-dated Britain's own.

Fawcett's subsequent forays into the jungle are complicated by illness, cowardly and mutinous expedition members, sabotage, and the outbreak of World War I, where, fighting in the front lines, he suffers from exposure to chlorine gas. Nina stands by his side throughout everything, though she's increasingly displeased by his long stretches away. Fawcett's sons, too, are on the verge of alienation, resentful of his focus on adventures far away from home and hearth.

The film skimps on the evidence that Fawcett found so compelling, showing us a few pottery sherds, a petroglyph, and some faces carved into rocks and trees, and referencing a story -- related by an native guide -- about an ancient city. It's understood that a film like this needs to compress and accentuate events in order to maintain both its pace and its dramatic tension, but a little more substantial proof to give a better sense of Fawcett's willingness to believe would have served the film better than its occasional departures into spiritualism and outright fantasy. In one passage, a psychic medium braves the horrors of the way to entertain troops in the trenches with an Ouija board; she gives Fawcett a glimpse into his future and his "destiny." The scene is stylishly rendered, but that doesn't stop it feeling entirely out of place.

The film's final sequences dance into pure fabrication, which is unavoidable in a certain sense, given that the disappearance of Fawcett and his party remains unsolved (though tantalizing possibilities have been given credence by Grann's book). Even so, the film ventures far too far into the realm of the improbable in the service of a happy (or at least ambiguous) ending.

Hunnam and Miller provide strong performances, though, and they keep the film afloat. Pattinson acquits himself well -- his character has some fine moments -- and Angus Macfadyen has so much fun as James Murray, a South Pole explorer who finds he's much less suited to the challenges of the jungle, that his work far outshines the character himself.

Overall, one can't help the feeling that "The Lost City of Z" is destined to be lost in the overgrown terrain of movie history, which is littered with many forgotten gems. This won't be one of them; though it may retain an aura of competently-produced craftsmanship, this film isn't substantial enough as either a historical drama or an adventure story to sustain interest. Hunnam, on the other hand, we might hope to see forge onward; he just might be the next great leading man.