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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Loved this movie. Lately I struggle finding movies with depth, character, quality and not just violence, drugs and porn. This movie reminded me how important journalism is to the oppressed and broken. They go to wars with cameras not guns showing truth not opinion removing self, chancing death, seeing so much pain and carnage! Watch this movie it is up there with the best I've seen in awhile!!

Awhile ago and I must say I really enjoyed it. It's in my top 5 Zoe bell movies. I don't know why it gets so much hate. It's a gem. and she's good in it. Guess just not everyone's cup of tea

As I'm writing this, Camino has a score of 4.8, which is an excessively low score. I've actually noticed a trend on IMDb where a lot of films are given extremely poor ratings when they're just not that bad and Camino is definitely one of these films. It's unfortunate because I know some people will watch or not watch a film based on the IMDb score, which means a lot of good or decent movies are probably being missed out on.

A lot of other reviewers are complaining of bad acting, but I can only assume they are exaggerating or just haven't watched a wide range of films. The acting is not "bad" - it's not necessarily award-winning stuff, but it's certainly not bad. Usually, if I'm watching a film with bad acting, I find it difficult to get into as I can't become absorbed in it and am constantly aware that I'm watching (bad) actors, but that never happened once to me while watching Camino. I think Zoe Bell is actually very impressive for a stunt-woman-turned- actress.

Also, do not skip the first ten minutes of the film as another reviewer said, it is relevant to the film and what happens during the first ten minutes helps to make sense of another scene that happens around midway through the film.

The only thing I would criticize is that Zoe Bell's character seems a little too skilled in combat for a photojournalist going up against militia members who've presumably had experience in guerilla warfare. It's saved, though, by the fact that most of the fighting lacks any crazy martial arts moves on Zoe Bell's part and instead sticks to dirty, survival style fighting, maintaining an element of realism.

Overall, I think this movie is pretty solid and I've definitely seen a lot worse.