As Good As It Gets

An Exercise In Nonsense

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Not the best movie ever but actually really enjoyable.

Unlike many of the critics when it was first released, I have a lot of time for this twisted little movie. As with the best horror movies it affects you more because you can't get out of your mind that it just could happen. There is no supernatural aspect to shield you from reality.I won't give too much away because it does have some unexpected plot twists. Suffice to say the story is about a group of backpackers from Britain, Europe, the U.S. and Australia that becomes stranded after a bus accident in a remote area in Brazil. They receive descending degrees of helpfulness from the locals until they realise that they should have caught the plane instead.This definitely isn't a movie the Brazilian Tourist Board would want you to take seriously in the year of the Rio Olympics; apparently Brazilians really didn't like it at all when it was released 10 years ago, and it was boycotted.They felt about it the way Australia's Tourism people probably felt about "Wolf Creek". I know people who walked out of that one, although it wasn't actually boycotted."Turistas" is particularly well made, and shot on location with a very believable group of actors playing the likable and adventurous tourists. The characters are well-defined with Desmond Askew just about stealing the show as Finn, the scrappy and irrepressible little Englishman. Josh Duhamel plays Alex, a reluctant American traveller who has come along to keep his sister Bea and her friend out of trouble as they enter the sort of places strangers would be wise to avoid.Melissa George makes an impact as Australian surfer girl Pru. As an Aussie I must admit to a certain amount of national pride as she flitted around in a bikini revealing a body that is a tribute to an active, outdoor Australian lifestyle.You could argue that the film gets a little predictable towards the end, but I found the whole thing was so revved up by that point that you hardly noticed. As far as Brazil's image is concerned, I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't take the actual premise behind the story too seriously, but maybe it's a reminder that double checking travel plans anywhere you go might be a smart idea - if the film has a message it's no more perverse than that.Anyway, international politics aside, I think you do get your money's worth with this travel package.

Crashing in the Brazilian jungle, a group of tourists stranded in the jungle finds their helpful guide part of an illegal group harvesting organs on the black market and tries to get away before becoming the next participants.Overall this was a pretty disappointing effort without too many positive points. What really hurts this one is the fact that there's just nothing happening here for such a long period of time that it's really troubling for the most part. While it's nice to have the crash that strands the group being so early in here, there's still a ton of time spent here waiting around trying to decide to do something, followed up by a rather lengthy hike through the jungle where all they do is simply complain about the backwards customs in the country or try to strike up a relationship with each other that really becomes quite tedious as this goes along, and with the rather extended amount of time partying the first half is really just so bland and uninteresting that even while providing some nice eye-candy and setting up the mystery nothing much happens. The treks through the jungle are even more tedious of seeing everyone marching along in single file line through the admittedly lush jungles in a seemingly endless series of legs trudging along while every minute is taken up with the gang arguing with each other or complaining about the trip, and this causes the film to be so long and boring for the first hour here. Frankly, none of this is even remotely horror- related and causes this to take until the hour mark until it goes for horror, and that's not in the slightest bit interesting to take this long to get interesting. That is where the film really gets going as the slowly-dawning mystery being built in the first half gets paid off nicely here in the compound in a pretty brutal and graphic surgery scene to remove the one victims' organs which is easily the highlight here for the uneasiness it features as well as the cruelty for which it gives in the rationale for everything here. Even better is the escape here with the nice manner of how they get away as well as the generally enjoyable chases through the jungle using the native habitat and some rather clever tactics to help get away including a fantastic suspense scene of utilizing the secret underwater cave-system to get to safety. However, even that has problems, running for far too long by repeating useless scenes of everyone continually popping up for air and being so dark to being with the suspense is long gone by the time this finally resolves itself in a cliché, unconvincing manner. It's part of the reason for why this one is knocked down as much as it is.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and Nudity.

When I saw this on Television I knew that a lot was being left out, I had to buy the movie and see what was intended to be seen, I watched it and was overwhelmed because I didn't realize that Melissa George was in this movie and she is cast along side, Josh Duhamel mostly known for Transformers and Life as We Know It, and Olivia Wilde. The film isn't scary as much as it is blood and screams, the screams are because people are being chased, in which case it's only natural to do so. In other words there wasn't anything hateful to say but there also wasn't anything that stood out enough to be exciting, I do recommend it though because it's entertainment.