Turistas (2006) Directed by John Stockwell
Hey what do you know? Another movie I saw in the theater that I’m doing. I originally didn’t even plan on doing a review of this, but I saw it was on Cinemax the other day and gave it a watch. I forgot about this movie to be honest. When it came out I went with my buddies blindly to see it, we all ended up enjoying it. Then I bought Turistas when it came out on DVD, let someone borrow it, and never got it back…awesome. This came out during the time of the torture porn boom, so super detailed and realistic gore was all the craze. This movie added more of a tense gut wrenching aspect to the genre that I really enjoyed at the time.
Three American tourists, Alex (Josh Duhamel), his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde) and fried Amy (Beau Garrett) are backpacking in Brazil. They decided to take a bus instead of flying to the northeastern beaches of the country. After a bus crash leaves the passengers stranded, two Englishmen named Finn and Liam join them. They also meet a cute Australian woman named Pru (Melissa George). This is the second time Melissa George has been on my count down, first time was Triangle a couple weeks ago, read it! Pru is fluent in Portuguese, which is a great help to the others, since they’re oblivious to the native language. The group walks to a nearby cabana bar where several other tourists and locals are partying. They take a dip in the ocean and have some drinks. Their drinks are drugged and they pass out on the beach.
The next morning they wake up, the bar is gone and so are all of their belongings. They look for help in the nearby village; they encounter conflict with the locals as they see some of their stuff lying around. Kiko, a local that speaks English helps them, and takes them out to a cabin in the woods. The whole movie I kept referring to Kiko as Carlito Caribbean Cool, the former WWE wrestler that spit in the face of people who don’t want to be cool. No not the Joss Whedon movie, just a random cabin in the woods. Along the way he stops to show them a cool underwater cave. They swim under to check it out. Kiko says to Bea that he has never made friends with gringos before, and then his mood changes. He tells them that they should turn back. Since they already walked 10miles out into the woods, they refuse to turn back. Kiko gets talked into jumping again off from a waterfall, and he crashes at the bottom splitting his head open. They carry Kiko to the cabin and set up to give him medical attention. Liam grabs a staple gun and closes the wound on Kiko’s head, Kiko jumps up and goes to a bed and lies down. They reluctantly stay the night.
The group is awakened in the middle of the night by a chopper bringing Zamora, a doctor, and a few associates surrounded by guards with guns. A woman arrives advises them to leave, but they are confused and try to fight them, only to be beaten down. Zamora proceeds to remove the organs from Amy while he tells Finn, who is tied up that he is an organ thief for transplant. Amy dies on the table when her liver and kidneys are removed. Meanwhile, the others break free from the cages outside and kill one of the associates. Kiko comes back and helps them after being sent away by Zamora. While Bea and Pru take off into the jungle, Alex, Kiko and Liam attempt to raid the cabin to rescue Finn. They get Finn out of the house, whom is unable to walk because he was sedated. While they run from the cabin, Finn is shot in the head. Alex continues his escape with Kiko, but Liam decides to stay and fight back, only to be shot and taken away to have his organs harvested.
Bea and Pru get separated and Alex and Kiko find Bea the next morning hiding by the river. The three head to the underwater cave, escaping one of the guards whom is shooting at them with arrows. They enter the cave where they find Pru hiding. Diving and swimming in the cavern’s secondary entrance, they find Zamora is also there. Zamora shoots and kills Kiko and injures Alex. The survivors are forced to backtrack into the water of the cave, where they can only take air in at a few places. They get separated, and the archer pursues them. Bea kills the archer with an arrow in the throat. Alex, Bea and Pru get out of the cave only to run into Zamora. Alex attacks Zamora, bashing his face with a huge rock repeatedly. Suddenly a henchman that looks like he was part of Milli Vanilli, is ordered to kill them by Zamora. They plead with the henchman, and he shoots Zamora instead. They escape the cave and some villagers take them in. Later, Alex, Bea and Pru stand in line, waiting to board a plane, while a couple of tourists argue over taking a bus. Alex turns and advises them to take the plane. The male tourist thanks Alex and they all board the plane. The last scene shows the survivors sitting in a plane while it flies off, ending their nightmare.
This movie is still very good to me I enjoyed it a lot. This is a very intense movie, lots of chases and near death moments. I enjoy the cast a lot; Josh Duhamel is believable as a protective brother to Olivia Wilde, whom I think is gorgeous. Olivia Wilde is a great actress, as shown in House MD. It is funny that Josh Duhamel goes from All My Children into this messed up of a movie and pulls it off. I remember hearing a lot of hate for this movie and I really don’t understand why. I think it has some real scares, because something like this is completely possible. I kept thinking of this movie when I went to Jamaica for my honeymoon last year. We boarded a big van to take us to the resort, and the driver was insane, all over the road. He actually got pulled over by the cops and gave them $10, and they let us go lol. The chase scenes are gut wrenching and tense. I found myself holding my breath when they were under the water, and since I can’t swim it was even tenser to me. Melissa George is a sweet girl in this movie, and I hope that she is like that in real life. Also Melissa’s braids in this movie are kind of hot, not gonna lie. I genuinely cared about each character and whether they lived or not, it was sad seeing Carlito, I mean Kiko die. He actually had a conscience unlike the others. Well, I guess Milli Vanilli had a conscience at the end. The gore was really solid in this movie too, not over the top and it was realistic. There wasn’t any characters in this movie that were there just to be douchebags, which is very common nowadays for horror. The underwater segments were shot beautifully and they weren’t disorienting like most movies. I would suggest this movie to anyone, it is fun, tense and creepy. I would give Turistas an A-, I always enjoy this movie and the acting is above average for the genre. Give it a look!
