Tag: zoe bell

Camino

  By

★★★½
“Flash, bang, wallop – what? A picture!”

caminoFollowing up on their successfully crunchy collaboration in Raze, director Waller and star Bell head into the jungle and back to the eighties – an era before cell-phones and digital cameras – for this story of one woman’s fight for survival against a band of Colombian rebels, led by Spanish immigrant, Guillermo (Vigalondo). In this case, the woman is Avery Taggart (Bell), a lauded war photographer whose latest mission is to cover the enigmatic yet charismatic Guillermo, whose mission initially appears as much philanthropic as military. Keyword: initially. For Avery stumbles into the rebel’s darker side, witnessing, and worse, photographing him carrying out a drug deal, then slitting the throat of an inconveniently-passing local child. Knowing this revelation would destroy him, Guillermo blames Avery for the murder, and sets out after her with his group, intent on preventing the incriminating film from getting out of the jungle. However, it won’t be easy: Avery has picked up a few survival skills from her life during wartime, and some of Guillermo’s foot-soldiers are unconvinced by his explanation.

I think the first surprise here is the opening chunk, before she goes into the jungle, which has Bell delivering the most intense acting of her career. Quite a discomforting performance too, it has to be said, and I did wonder if I was watching the right film for a bit. Fortunately, we’re eventually on the right track; nobody will exactly have rented this to watch Zoë emote in a hotel room, surprisingly impressive though it is. The action here is brutal: while the body-count is relatively small – compared, say to Raze – nobody dies quickly here at all, with demises which seem to stretch out forever. The peak is probably the first fight, in which Avery is stalked by Guillermo’s psychopathic lieutenant. This turns into a knock-down, drag-out brawl that is relentless and hardcore. Nothing after can quite compare, to be honest. The ending of the main story thread is, entirely deliberately, understated and almost casual, though a coda delivers a satisfactory payoff.

You do wonder how a photographer is able to do more than hold her own against jungle-hardened soldiers; I was half-expecting a further appendix scene where Avery turned out to be a CIA agent of some kind. [Truth be told, I wouldn’t have minded!] Vigalondo makes for a decent villain, if a little too verbose; had this had actually been made in the mid-80’s, rather than just set there, it would have been a perfect role for Klaus Kinski, and Nacho puts over a similar mix of thinly-disguised psychopath. The jungle almost becomes a supporting character here, abetted by an unusual, crunchy yet chewy soundtrack from electronic project Kreng. The film might have benefited from some editing and the script an additional polish. But, as expected, it’s Bell’s show and she delivers the convincing mix of elegance and physicality we have come to appreciate, like a tightly-wound spring inside a camera case.

Dir: Josh C. Waller
Star: Zoë Bell, Nacho Vigalondo, Francisco Barreiro, Sheila Vand

Paradox

  By

★★
“Yes, we will watch and enjoy Zoë Bell in anything.”

paradoxEven as a scientist. Seemed like a bit of a stretch for one of our favourite two-fisted heroines, but here, it turns out she’s actually an undercover NSA agent. She is only pretending to be a brainiac, whose cover identity of “Gale” is sent in to infiltrate a mysterious, highly secretive project being run in an underground facility by the equally mysterious “Mr. Landau” (Yoba); he has made a fortune on the stock exchange with an impeccable knowledge of its future movements. Perhaps related, turns out his team have been working on a time-machine, though it requires so much power, it fries the grid over a wide area – not unimportantly, sealing them into the underground base. Their first effort involves sending one of the group, Jim (Huss), ahead an hour; the plan is then for everyone else to “catch up.” A few minutes later, he returns, having seen a future where most of the scientists are dead, and the survivors stalked by an unknown assailant. Can their rapidly approaching. lethal fate be changed, or is it immutable?

I’m a sucker for time-travel films, but they need to be rather more rigorous than this one, which feels sloppy both in tone and execution, as if the makers couldn’t decide quite what they were trying for. One minute, it’s hard sci-fi, the next it’s a slasher pic. No, hang on – it’s a romance between Gale and one of the scientists! Wait, it’s suddenly Zoë Bell kicking ass? Not all of these work equally well, and the shifts between them are rarely less than jarring. There are also plot-holes – not so much with the time-travel aspect, which is handled relatively well, despite a film title that almost appears to be apologizing in advance. Most obviously, how does this underground facility have absolutely no stairs? Or, given the first use of the time-machine triggered a massive black-out, why is it then used repeatedly thereafter without issue?

The cast is equally inconsistent. Bell is, naturally, the best, but Yoba (whom we recognized from Alphas) is okay as an enigma dressed in a dark suit. The rest of the performers, however, appear to have been picked up at random from a local community college; someone needs to check if the director owns a white van or has made large, online purchases of chloroform. For the other actors appear capable of delivering lines or showing emotion – just not both, and certainly not at the same time.  This may be where the film comes closest to the slasher film, in that you care precious little for most of the victims or their fate. I’ll admit that we did not see the final twist coming, and like most time-travel films, may merit a second viewing, just to figure out whether or not it still makes sense, in the light of the late reveal. But there are an awful lot of movies further up the list.

Dir: Michael Hurst
Star: Zoë Bell, Malik Yoba, Adam Huss, Bjørn Alexander