Big River Man

5 votes and 1 Reviews

Rotten Tomatoes® Score
91% 74%

Release Date: December 18, 2009 (limited)

On DVD/VOD: February 23, 2010

1h 40m | Documentary

Martin Strel isn't your usual athlete. He's a big-bellied Slovenian, who eats horse burgers, drinks two bottles of red wine a day (even while swimming) and, when he tackled the Amazon in 2007, was 53 years old. Martin swims rivers to bring attention to their pollution. Prior to the Amazon, he had conquered the Danube, Mississippi and Yangtze, earning Guinness World Records for all.

However, the Amazon would prove to be his most grueling challenge ever. The river is filled with piranhas, anacondas, alligators, river sharks and candiru, a small parasitic fish that swims up the penis, where it releases razor-sharp barbed spines, removable only by surgery. Martin suffered sunburns (turning his face into "fried bacon"), subcutaneous larvae, high blood pressure, dehydration and the kind of exhaustion that plunged Martin and his team into questionable sanity.