Turistas

(2006) ***

I was kind of surprised by this so-called Hostel ripoff. I've never seen Hostel, so that wasn't going to bother me anyway, but I was prepping myself for some of that "torture porn" that I don't really like. Well, this ain't it. I'm guessing either this isn't really a Hostel knockoff, or neither of them are really torture porn. Or maybe torture porn is just a hyperbolic shock term.

Whatever. I ended up mostly enjoying this predictable little thriller. And that's saying something. I went in thinking I'd hate it regardless because it starred Josh Duhamel, who just seems like he begs to be called Josh Douche-hamel. Seriously, what a bag this guy looks like:

But he didn't really ruin much here. To be fair, he's mostly running around in the dark for the 2nd half of the movie, so there's not much acting required, but even early on, he's only slightly annoying.

Plus the ample shots of 3 cuties in Brazilian bikinis offer plenty of eye candy before the killing starts.

Oh, the plot you ask? A group of gringo tourists in Brazil are kidnapped by some psycho native doctor who wants to harvest their organs to give to the poor children. So it's sort of a feel good Robin Hood tale, in a way. But really, that's where I don't get the "torture porn" label applied to this movie. There's no torture at all (and way too little porn). One gory scene in which he removes the a kidney and liver is closer to Chicago Hope than it is to, say, Walking Dead (which is gorier than this movie).

Really, this movie is a captivity/escape thriller. The kids escape from the pissed off postcolonial doctor's house and run off into the dark rain forest. This leads to a really tense chase through underwater caves that totally gave me the willies. I almost can't watch shows about spelunking, as it just seems like such a horrible way to spend one's time. Not to mention terrifying. So seeing them swim around searching for air really prodded my fear instinct where I don't like to be prodded. Yikes.

All that said, it's not a great movie by any stretch. It takes it's sweet time getting to the suspense stuff, and most of that is stupid "let's all do shots and dance on the beach" crap. Some of the minor characters are throwaways who add little (especially the hot friend whose only purpose seemed to be that she'd take her top off). Ok, so that's legit I guess.

Anyway, despite some of the hype, I really don't think this is one that would even unsettle our resident biddies.