Movie Review: TURISTAS (2006)
Turistas (2006)—No Stars
I can see it now. The guys over at Fox Atomic, a new teen-targeted division of 20th Century Fox, are looking to cash in on the ultra-violent movie craze. Someone mentions Hostel. That gets them to thinking. What if we move that movie to a place where the women have to wear less clothing? What if the bad guy is an evil surgeon who harvests organs from tourists but also has a heart?
Turistas is a film that features a bunch of ugly Americans (and Brits) getting what they deserve for being spoiled tourists in poverty stricken parts of Brazil. The surgeon’s whole reason for harvesting organs is to take back from the “gringos” what they took from Brazil through rape and general disregard for the country’s people. An evil surgeon who cares, eh? It really is hard to make a horror movie when the so-called bad guy is more a like revolutionary than a psycho killer.
Turistas stars Josh Duhamel (TV’s Las Vegas) as Alex, an older brother who goes to Brazil with his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde) and her friend to protect them from the non-white people. After their bus crashes and leaves them stranded, the three along with their new British and Australian pals find a nice hut on the beach that serves booze and has hot native women in bikinis. Soon a very blonde couple joins them. That blonde couple will be the first to go when the Brazilian savages drug the group so they can steal their organs.
Remember that scene in the 1933 King Kong, the one where the “savages” attack the Denham’s group when they arrive on Skull Island. I ignored the implicit racism in that scene because it never felt like the only thing that propelled the story. With Turistas, racism is the only thing that comes through clearly.
It’s not a surprise the film is bad. It is a surprise that Turistas can’t even build itself up to be grindhouse tripe like Cannibal Holocaust. If Josh Duhamel brutally raped someone and killed a few innocent Brazilians, I might have actually found some inkling of substance in the Brazilian surgeons speech about stealing organs to get back at white tourists.
That’s the most confusing thing to me. A part of me wants to side with the surgeon because the characters are such obnoxious xenophobes. Yet, they are set up as the victims. And as victims, they are involved in some of the most unsuspenseful action I have ever encountered. The final underwater chase sequence, specifically, is more overlong and messy than any other part of the film.
Since this review isn’t ever going to get positive, I’ll give you a quote I found from a metacritic.com user who loved the movie. “The film is perfect for horror fans with its nudity.” Nudity, huh? That’s all you want. I’d recommend renting a good porn flick. It probably has a better story than Turistas, and you won’t even have to watch Josh Duhamel throw away his fledgling movie career.
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