Strel is one strange duck, and you can only wonder that Werner Herzog, with his fondness for captivating weirdos, didn't get to him first.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 27, 2010

An odd and irresistible documentary about Slovenian strongman Martin Strel and his quest, at 52, to be the first man to swim 5,268 kilometres of the Amazon River.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 18, 2009

As his attention to detail and beauty shots prove, Mr. Maringouin has a terrific eye: he brings you close to Mr. Strel, sometimes within panting distance, without forgetting the larger, lovelier world.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 4, 2009

The real drama lies in the sweetly twisted symbiosis between this likable, infuriating wreck of a man and his devoted son and publicist.

| Dec 2, 2009

A nonfiction Fitzcarraldo.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2009

Big River Man is a marketing tool for the hard-drinking, overweight Slovenian swimmer Martin Strel, only it's disguised as a global warming awareness tale of human endurance.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 30, 2009

Entertaining more as a portrait of a slightly unhinged sportsman than the biography of stunt.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2009

If Werner Herzog had made 'Borat', the results might have been something like this documentary about the unusual athletic overachiever Martin Strel.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2009

There's something undeniably charming about such an amateurish attempt to establish a world record.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2009

A bizarre, occasionally troubling documentary.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2009

For all the straight-faced self-mockery, it somehow remains a tribute to an exceptional man. Big River Man gets away with its archness only because it's evident that somewhere beneath its layers of irony, there is a beating heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2009

John Maringouin's documentary about Slovenian Martin Strel's attempt to swim the Amazon starts like a Borat-style spoof and ends as Fitzcarraldo in Speedos.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2009

There is a general air of contrivance as well as connivance on the part of the filmmakers. Best are the scenes of primitive quetitude that seem to take place outside the perimeters of the film altogether.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2009

This chronicle of his swim is fuzzy and flaky: the implication is that Strel, exhausted and delirious from his efforts, suffered a mental breakdown. His story requires a comparable narrator: one wonders what Werner Herzog might have done with it.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 4, 2009

This raw, eccentric documentary is both hugely entertaining and 'can do' inspirational.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2009

An uncomfortable watch. But it's also darkly funny and paints a fascinating portrait of a man driven to do something very stupid.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2009