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Fantastic Fest 2015: CAMINO – The Review – We Are Movie Geeks

Fantastic Fest

Fantastic Fest 2015: CAMINO – The Review

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Zoe Bell has proven that she’s up to the challenge of getting her hands dirty in films like RAZE, BITCH SLAP, and her career igniting role in DEATH PROOF. Her physicality is without question. She more than holds her own in CAMINO as she rumbles in the jungle with a bunch of Columbian thugs. There’s a stark realism to her maneuvers, punches, and kicks, but the stunt woman turned actress from New Zealand doesn’t quite have the strength to carry this 70’s and 80’s throwback action film. CAMINO suffers from a case of being both monotonous and feeling like a film you’ve seen done better before.

Avery Taggert (Zoe Bell) is an award-winning photojournalist. Her new assignment is to venture into the jungles of Colombia and document a group of religious freedom fighters led by Fantastic Fest mainstay and all-around wild man Nacho Vigalondo – an inspired bit of casting.  After accidentally photographing something on her journey with the group that she was not supposed to witness, Avery is now forced to survive the hellish jungle while battling the internal ghosts of her past.

CAMINO is a standard action film and nothing more. Once the chase begins through the jungle, the film tries to spice things up with periodic fights with a different baddie. Each knife fight or skirmish includes the requisite drawn-out speech or commentary from the attacker. One scene in particular is quite ridiculous. The meanest tattooed baddie of the bunch spends a ridiculous time talking and toying with Zoe Bell to the point that he practically lets her setup her counter-attack without fail.

Part of what makes the film not work as well as it should is because it feels like one extended set-piece. Each action sequence seems like an extension of the next. The only thing that separates one from the next is the amount of dirt and sweat caked on Zoe Bell, and whether each bloody battle is lit by natural light or barely visible in the dark of night. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they lit the entire film with only natural light since the night sequences are so distractingly dark. What makes it worse is when the camera zooms in close for the hand-to-hand knife fights. Half the battle will be trying to decipher who’s limb is whose.

Avery’s journey to capture the truth on camera lends the film a slight morality tale angle. Director Josh Waller balances the drama with the action fairly well, but neither feel entirely satisfying. Bones break alongside a soul-searching and truth seeking adventure film, but CAMINO doesn’t quite have the endurance to stand apart from the pack.

 

Overall rating: 2.5 out of 5

 

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I enjoy sitting in large, dark rooms with like-minded cinephiles and having stories unfold before my eyes.