BEFORE: I'm getting very close to Movie #250 for the year, which means after Monday I'll have only 50 movies left to watch before I close the book on 2019 - still on schedule to have my first Perfect Year, with an unbroken chain from Jan. 1 to Christmas. I'm getting more anxious as it gets closer, and I don't think I've been awaiting Christmas this much since I was a little kid. Each day that goes by, that means that one more thing went right with my chain, and that's one less thing that could go wrong between now and then.
Oscar Jaenada carries over from "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". One last little vacation-themed movie before the end of summer, OK?
THE PLOT: When her boyfriend dumps her before their planned exotic vacation, a young woman persuades her mother to travel with her to paradise, with unexpected results.
AFTER: I watched three films with Goldie Hawn in February, and it would have been SO easy to slip this one in there, but a few things happened - first off, my February schedule was jam-packed, over-packed in fact, so at some point I was even looking for ways to trim it DOWN rather than beef it up. And I still went long, with the romance chain extending well into March this time around - but hey, if it results in a Perfect Year, chain-wise, then every decision becomes a good decision. But also this film didn't really seem to fit as a romance, so I paid attention to that little voice inside my head that said, "Hey, drop this one from the chain, at least for now, you can probably find a way to circle back later and include it somehow. Plus, you never know, it could provide a valuable link later on that will make a larger chain possible." And I've learned over time to listen to that little voice, because it's often right. Look, here it is, providing a valuable link between the Adam Driver chain and, umm, tomorrow's film, which will get me to Movie 250 for 2019, which will ultimately get me to Christmas.
Ugh, but I'm really burning this one off tonight, if I'm being honest. It's not really a laugh-out-loud comedy, and isn't that the first job of a comedy, to be, you know, FUNNY? It comes from a weird place, like somebody decided to find the humor in a mother and daughter being kidnapped in Ecuador and held for ransom. When we go to the movies, do we want to be reminded that there are bad people in the world who will abduct us if we decide to vacation in a Third World country? Hey, maybe there are people out there that don't check travel advisories, or decide to leave the safety of the tropical resort to go out and explore those little native villages with "character", because they want to experience "the REAL South America". OK, well, maybe those people need to be removed from the gene pool, that's just Darwinism at work, right? The next generation will learn from their experience and be a lot less likely to leave the Club Med, or wherever, where the drinks are included and there are 7 meals daily.
(Which reminds me, I haven't been on a cruise since 2013 - my wife and I sort of ran out of Caribbean to explore, since we did the Western Caribbean on our honeymoon, the Eastern Caribbean a few years later, and then the Southern Caribbean (including Aruba, Curacao, Colombia and Panama) on the last one. Seeing the Panama Canal was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Cartagena didn't seem as bad as its reputation to me. But what's my motivation to go and eat somewhere on shore in South America, when my meals on the cruise ship were already paid for? And after breakfast came second breakfast, then snacks, then lunch, then the 2 pm taco party, then hamburgers/hot dogs at 4, dinner, then dessert with an option for late night Chinese food? I think I gained a lot of weight on the last cruise, but I'm not sure how that happened.)
NITPICK POINT: Obviously the guy who seemed very interested in dating Emily's character was in on the kidnapping plot. But the masked kidnappers rammed their van into his jeep before abducting Emily and her mother. If he was in on the plot, does it make sense that they would wreck his jeep in the process? That doesn't really track, because any money they get as a ransom would then have to go toward car repairs for both the jeep AND their van. Seems like a losing proposition, if you ask me, and there are probably MUCH cheaper ways to kidnap people, instead of causing a car accident every time. Even if they get the $100,000 they want, have you SEEN the cost of car repair? Plus that's points on their insurance, so I don't think so - AND then they don't have the van ready to abduct the next gullible tourists, because it's in the shop.
The best character here is probably the one played by Christopher Meloni, an ex-pat American who seems like he knows his way around the jungle, and has a boat that can take the mother and daughter to Bogota after they escape. But it turns out this guy doesn't know as much as he seems to, and may in fact be insane. Meloni is GREAT at playing this type of character, who have a lot of bravado but also seem to have a screw loose. For the short time that he appears in this film, he really takes over and steals every scene. But NITPICK POINT #2, there's just no part of the Amazon River that could take a boat from Ecuador to anywhere CLOSE to Bogota, Colombia.
For everyone else, there's just no consistency - the lead character, Emily, is supposed to be the likable central focus here, only she keeps acting in very annoying ways - taking too many selfies, being clueless about the dangers around her, acting entitled. How can I possibly like her when I just want to slap her after everything she does? Perhaps, like me, you might find yourself rooting for the kidnappers here. Her mother, Linda, toggles between over-protective, insular and non-adventurous, and then she's also boring during the times when they forget to give her anything to do. Emily's brother is an agoraphobic, spoiled momma's boy, and then when he learns his mother has been kidnapped, he turns into a manic and panicked desperate son, who has no recourse but to THREATEN the one man at the U.S. State Department who's in a position to help him. Then there are two women vacationing at the resort who are supposedly some kind of former special ops military types (traveling together, but they're just "good friends" - riiiigght...) and the script can't decide if they should be professionally trained, or complete screw-ups. Just a lot of really, really sloppy writing here.
Sometimes I really don't understand the pricing schedules of streaming movies - I got this one off of premium cable last year, and I dubbed it to DVD, so for me watching this was free - OK, not really "free" because I pay for cable, but it didn't cost me anything extra over my cable bill. It's available now on YouTube for $3.99, iTunes for $5.99 and Amazon for $14.99 - what idiot would pay nearly $15 to watch this on Amazon when the other services are so much cheaper? Anyway, they should pay YOU to watch this so-called comedy, not the other way around. Jesus, it should at least be free with an Amazon Prime account, what's the deal with THAT? Even if you want to see Amy Schumer's naked boob (and I'm not judging here, but WHY?) you can probably find that clip for free on the internet or get a good enough idea of what it looks like from her Instagram feed.
Also starring Amy Schumer (last seen in "The Last Laugh"), Goldie Hawn (last seen in "Swing Shift"), Ike Barinholtz (last seen in "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"), Wanda Sykes (last heard in "Ice Age: Collision Course"), Joan Cusack (last seen in "Welcome to Me"), Christopher Meloni (last seen in "Nights in Rodanthe"), Bashir Salahuddin, Tom Bateman (last seen in "Murder on the Orient Express"), Randall Park (last seen in "Aquaman"), Al Madrigal (last seen in "Night School"), Arturo Castro, Pedro Haro, Sergio Sanchez, Tom Choi, Kevin Kane (also last seen in "Trainwreck"), Daniel Bess, Raven Goodwin.
RATING: 3 out of 10 tropical drinks
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