Camino

If you're after a suspenseful thriller with a dark and vicious backbone to it, I'd thoroughly recommend this one! The story follows Avery (the wonderful Zoe Bell) an acclaimed photojournalist who is sent to document a few days in the life of a missionary group led by Guillermo (played ferociously by Nacho Vigalondo) and she soon captures something that we was not supposed to see. It seems to be a passion project for Zoe Bell (who also is executive producer of the film) and she really does give her all here; a thoroughly engaging screen actor who was before most well known for her brilliant stunt work as Xena The Warrior Princess and Uma Thurman's stunt double as the Bride in the Kill Bill movies. Since her amazing role in Death Proof (2007) she has gone on to feature in more starring focused roles in such films as the fantastic Whip It (2010) and is a very underrated talent as showcased in Camino. Everyone else also act really well in this film; particularly Vigalondo who is great at presenting a ruthless man who can still work his charm on those around him (a monologue he delivers at one point in the film is really powerful) The music in the film, composed by Pepjin Caudron AKA Kreng, is perhaps the most key component in the mood and tension of the film; a shrieking, thumping soundtrack that slams the audience in the face in the more hard to watch scenes in the film. The hard to watch parts may disturb some viewers and what surprised me most about this film is that it doesn't hold back on the violence (certainly not for the squeamish) and some disturbing imagery (the most important photograph of the story stayed with me a little while after)

"The spiral is death."

I had no idea who Zoë Bell really was. Afterwards she appears to be a famous stunt woman who has repeatedly demonstrated her skills in Quentin Tarantino movies. It's not the first time she acted in a movie. You can admire her in "Oblivion" and also in "The hateful Eight". This time, however, she got the main part. Unfortunately her character is too one-dimensional to judge her on her acting talent. Substantively it's of the same level as a role played by Gina Carano. After seeing some impressive fight scenes I knew she's one hell of a stunt woman. Sadly enough these scenes were sometimes unrealistic, when you take her character into account.

Avery (Zoe Bell) is a well-respected war photographer who, after receiving an award, is promptly planted on an aircraft by her editor. The destination is Columbia where she can make a photo shoot of a paramilitary group, led by the charismatic revolutionary Guillermo (Nacho Vigalondo). They act like local pharmacists in the Colombian jungles. In reality, Guillermo is nothing more than a crazy psychopath who's using this sacred mission as a cover up for his own criminal activities. When Avery makes some compromising photographs of a murderous Guillermo, he succeeds in convincing his crew that the foreign photographer is the culprit. And that's the beginning of a hunt through the jungle with Avery as a prey.

Until the first encounter with one of Guillermo's freedom fighters, this film seemed promising. After the obligatory introduction, you will see beautiful images of the vast jungle. A wonderful mix of images of a subtropical jungle and stylistic black and white photographs. Even the sometimes exaggerated speeches of Guillermo were acceptable up to a certain level. But when Avery becomes a Rambo-like guerrilla fighter, who can defend herself excellent on unknown territory, the film lost a lot of credibility. I am sure Zoë Bell can stand her ground as a stunt woman. But when the person Avery, who's a grim war photographer, turns into a talented person who excels in close combat, knows how to use an automatic rifle and uses tactical combat strategies, that's a bridge too far. In reality, she wouldn't even survive her first clash with the lunatic Alejo (Tenoch Huerta).

I was hoping this would be a brooding, exciting thriller. But in the end I only got to see a typical survival film. It made me think of "Predator" sometimes, but now without an alien. Guillermo's followers are being released one by one to hunt their victim. It's just waiting for the ultimate clash (with a ridiculous outcome) to present itself. The only downside about this taking place in the jungle, is the fact that it's mostly dark. This makes it sometimes really difficult to follow the action. The performances are proportionate to the level of the film itself. But I need to say there's one thing that really got my attention. The soundtrack. The musical accompaniment is usually not something I pay attention to, but this time I was surprised by the ominous music full of unusual sounds. Ominous during critical moments and mysterious in between. For me, the creator of this soundtrack is the true star of this movie.

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Zoe Bell and the Colombian jungle. A story about truth and apparences, a courageous and brave at whole photojournalist, a picture as seed of hunt against her from a psychopath fake missionary.

In essence , a collection of drawings - religious, social, politic, nostalgic. Beautiful, no doubts, but in a special manner because it seems a webb for a too large target.

Zoe Bell , against feminist sparkles , unrealism of resistence and not the most inspired final is just admirable as Avery. And, in fact, this real matters.

I like Zoe so was more than willing to be entertained, but the Directors vision lets the story down. The lame 'introduction' for example; wft? Do yourself a favor and Fast Forward thru the first 10 minutes of 'Character development' because its a disaster and imho counter-productive and damaging to the film overall. Nothing in that first 10 minutes creates any empathy or positive connection to the character.

Seriously,the first 10 minutes are a waste of time and would have been best left on the cutting room floor. The opening Credits begin at the 10:00minute mark, start there and the experience will be greatly improved.

Typical "bad guy" (Nacho) chasing a victim (Zoe Bell) but this time in the jungle. The screen-player or screenwriters of this movie tried to mix the heroic Rambo like skilled photographer with both drugs and violence stereotypical of Colombia. The story is quite poor in content and reality, over-posted loud sounds on violent scenes, guerrilla speaking in English or on Mexican-Spanish even they called Nacho "guero" word that doesn't exist in South-America. Decent photography and OK acting.

We are not garbage collectors as Herzog would say... where are the good filmmakers then?