Connor Layne has just graduated from high school and is getting married to his sweetheart. When he finds out that his bride to be has dallied with his best man, he makes a scene at the wedding and books the next flight out, ending up in Nicaragua. There he loses his money, his shirt (literally) and possibly his virginity. Instead of heading back to college, he joins a group of practical jokers (again, literal) who are determined to cross the Darien Gap.
Connor is played by the kid that was Francis in Malcolm in the Middle, Christopher Masterson. He’s pretty appealing, as is the rest of the cast – they’re all good looking and fairly charismatic, if a little too clean at times for the task at hand. They do the best they can with the material, save the leader of the group, who sounds too much like Patrick Warburton pretending to be unfunny.
There’s some nice film work of the South American natives and some beautiful footage of Macchu Picchu, but mostly the photography doesn’t offer the kind of heart stopping views that inspire travel. And the writing, oh, the writing! It’s not entirely awful, just cliched, littered with the kind of revelations that all travelers think are so important. Indeed they are, for the travelers themselves, but for those outside the experience, they’re just the ramblings of a 20 something discovering there’s more to the world than high school, or a stock broker realizing there’s more to life than the pursuit of money, even if it does fund your outrageous adventures. Bully for your revelations. Yawn.
Connor has a terrific adventure. He meets hot, promiscuous Dutch girls, completes an epic task, falls in love with an older woman from a far away place who returns his affections, becomes a travel writer, throws off the chains of a path of domestic predictability to become a planetary vagabond. He lives the fantasy of so many travelers, but why is it so boring?
It’s boring because it’s the fantasy of a 20 year old boy just out of high school. It’s all about Connor’s exploits, not about the places he goes or the people he meets, not really. The back stories for Connor’s companions are flimsy, the history and native culture of the places he visits remain unexplored. Macchu Picchu is nothing more than another pretty place for Connor and his sweetheart to make out. It’s a classic tale. 20 something goes traveling, gets lost, finds love and himself. It’s not a new story and if you’re going to tell it, you have to do so, forgive me, artfully.
If you watched Malcolm in the Middle, you’ll remember that there’s a series of episodes where Francis is up in Alaska. During the movie I kept thinking that those episodes were far more expressive of place, of the characters that inhabit the Last Frontier, of the kinds of mistaken adventures that happen when you’re far from home. I couldn’t help it. The writing was better when Francis was in Alaska than it is for Connor in South and Central America.
The one moment in the movie that I really enjoyed came at the very end, at the conclusion of a practical joke. I laughed out loud for a brief moment at the cleverness. You have to see the set up in the middle of the movie to appreciate the conclusion. But it’s not worth crossing the Darien Gap for.
Your review makes me glad I passed on this film. There’s not enough time in my life to watch bad movies.
I just watched the film with six of my friends and all of us absolutely loved it. Actually one of my friends just thought it was alright but I saw him laugh at all the funny parts. By the sound of the review I don’t he’s ever really traveled by backpack to a foreign country. Sure there are parts of the film the viewer has to take a leap of faith, but in the end the film is really fun to watch and inspires you to go out and travel the world! Then if you research the film you find out that it was made on an ultra low budget and you wonder how the filmmakers actually pulled it off! I’m actually amazed that the DVd doesn’t show any of the behind the scenes footage that you can find in youtube. The extras on the DVD really sucks, but I believe the journey is really worth taking.
Insightful review. You mean that 20-something navel-gazing memoirs are only fascinating to the naval-gazer. Why didn’t somebody articulate that to me. Maybe they were being kind.
I will avoid that film, because I love Malcolm in the Middle, why ruin the romance? The parents are the best, Lois and Hal. “Once again, I have to be embarrassed for the both of us.”
Wow, just loved it. It had everything – good entertainment, fabulous scenery, a love story, a personal growth story (choosing the path less traveled), adventure, danger, and for a nice change a happy ending.
The reviewer must be crazy. The character Christopher Masterson plays in the film is NOTHING like the character in “Malcolm in the Middle”. I love the TV show too and I was really impressed that Masterson picked a roll like this. It’s an indie film labeled on Netflix as a drama (which it’s barely- I consider it more of a comedy/action/romance film) and actually the writing, though at times can be corny, it not horrible and actually pretty entertaining. I’ve seen nothing like this film out there and I’d give this film 3 1/2 stars out of 5.
The reviewer isn’t “crazy” – not really, plus, she’s me.
I think it speaks highly of this movie that there are fans willing to defend it so strenuously on my little site.
In case it’s not clear, I didn’t compare the Francis/Connor characters, I compared the writing for each of those contexts in which I’ve seen this actor. I thought Malcolm had better writers for Masterson than this picture did. And I thought Masterson did the best he could with what he had.