This is one of those action-adventure movies that can't take itself even as seriously as 'Romancing the Stone' and 'Jewel of the Nile' did back in my long-ago youth. It unabashedly pays tribute to both, with the occasional borrowings from 'Mr and Mrs Smith' and other movies involving South American countries seen through US eyes.
Where Jewel turned a few tropes on their heads, this one makes them do cartwheels. It flips the obligatory seductive dancing and drinking fiesta scene into something more in tune with a world where not every work trip results in the sweaty tropical clinch. The interplays and shifting loyalties between the dictator and the reporter, and then with his various family members and politicians and mercenaries, are a much more interesting set of relationships than the standard 'action hero saves the day' that's been so overdone as to basically be a meme on its own.
Is that why this movie gets so many low rankings? Because the big guy with muscles and familiarity with weapons doesn't save the girl or the status quo single-handed?
Welcome to the 21st century.
Anyway... an enjoyable flick with some thought behind it, that's going to wear well.
Where Jewel turned a few tropes on their heads, this one makes them do cartwheels. It flips the obligatory seductive dancing and drinking fiesta scene into something more in tune with a world where not every work trip results in the sweaty tropical clinch. The interplays and shifting loyalties between the dictator and the reporter, and then with his various family members and politicians and mercenaries, are a much more interesting set of relationships than the standard 'action hero saves the day' that's been so overdone as to basically be a meme on its own.
Is that why this movie gets so many low rankings? Because the big guy with muscles and familiarity with weapons doesn't save the girl or the status quo single-handed?
Welcome to the 21st century.
Anyway... an enjoyable flick with some thought behind it, that's going to wear well.
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