Metacritic reviews

Mr. Rosenfeld is a writer whose talent shines through in the way he harvests minute pearls.

Overall, King of the Jungle never quite achieves a necessary, culminating insight about charity, or mercy -- though Leguizamo's performance puts one in reach.

May be the biggest gathering of high-decibel performers in one movie. But they work well together and some are truly excellent.

Story's spurts of violence are designed to tear Seymour's world apart , but Rosenfeld's scripting and directing choices tend to lessen impact of a potentially gut-wrenching urban tale.

Draggy and contrived.

Leguizamo is all twitches and spasms; there's not a bit of subtlety in his high-wire performance. By the time you get past it, the film bogs down in dime-store potboiling.

The merely depressing ultimately gives way to the contrived in Seth Zvi Rosenfeld's King of the Jungle.

The script originally began life as a stage play, but still feels underwritten.

Rosenfeld's film doesn't have much of a story to tell and tells it rather routinely.