InsidePulse DVD Review – Puerto Vallarta Squeeze

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Credit: Amazon.com

Director:

Arthur Allan Seidelman

Starring:

Scott Glenn ………. Clayton Price
Harvey Keitel ………. Walter McGrane
Craig Wasson ………. Danny Pastor
Giovanna Zacarias ………. Maria de la Luz Santos
Jonathan Brandis ………. Agent Neil Weatherford

The Movie

I have never heard of this movie when I chose to review it. I took a look at the previews for it and thought it would be a good action movie with a pretty good cast. There were a few “big” names that I recognized. Plus, it was based in Mexico, which is a favorite vacation destination of mine. That sold me enough to see what this was all about.

The plot goes something like this. Clayton Price, played by Scott Glenn, is an American government hit man. Unfortunately, he takes out a U.S. military leader in Mexico and that gets him in a lot of trouble. He runs into an American couple, who is on vacation. He makes a deal with them. He will give them a lot of money if they help him disappear into the Mexican jungle. Of course, they don’t know that Price has a secret past and that the U.S. CIA is after Price! The CIA after Price is led by Walter McGrane, played by Harvey Keitel. He is supposed to bring back Price dead or alive!

First, this movie is not original. We have seen these types of movies before. And that is the problem with this movie. It’s a little predictable. Probably too predictable. I won’t “spoil” the movie for you, but there is a twist at the end. Actually..there are two twists. One at the very end and one before the end. They are both boring as you can see them coming from a mile away. And it’s not like these “twists” makes any sense at all. It doesn’t make sense. So how can you see them coming then, if it doesn’t make sense? The movie is predictable. We’ve seen it before with a different cast and situation.

Let me talk about the cast then. You have Harvey Keitel and Scott Glenn as the leading men. Both men have been in LOTS and LOTS of great movies. Never been in the same movie before, though. So you might expect that these two could hook up and do something great here. They ARE the bright spots for this movie. They play their parts well. Glenn is the star of the show. I loved his character. But what brings this movie down a notch or two is the American couple, played by Craig Wasson and Giovanna Zacarias. They are boring and annoying at times. Honestly, the movie would have been better if there were different actors in their place. This was not a big budget movie, though. If it was, then they may have gotten better actors to play those parts. I was actually most impressed with Jonathan Brandis, who played McGrane’s right-hand man. I’ve seen him before in movies a LONG time ago, so it was nice to see him return here. But also sad to hear that he died soon after this movie.

There were things I liked about this movie, though. It had some good action scenes as I expected. The scenery was fantastic. The best part of the movie was the location. The Mexican jungle was the perfect backdrop for this movie. Yes..we have seen this movie before in different forms, but the scene for this movie was an A+!

This was a fun little movie. For this being the first feature film for the director, it was a good start. It could have been MUCH better, though. There were plot holes here and there and the lack of chemistry between some of the main characters REALLY hurt this movie. If you can look past that and enjoy the action and scenery, then it’s a good way to kill 2 hours.

Score: 6/10

The Video:

The video is given in 1.85:1 widescreen color. Transfer is decent with minimal distortion. No problems here. The Mexican locations look great!

The Audio:

The audio included is an option of either English DTS 5.1 sound, English Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, or English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound. No problems here either. There are English and Spanish subtitles available.

The Extras:

Feel free to skip this part, because there are no extras for this DVD. Unless you count the trailer, but I don’t think that is an extra. Not in my book. So you get NOTHING!

Score: 0/10

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