After losing her job and getting dumped, the unabashed adventurer Emily and her extremely cautious mom Linda embark on an impromptu trip to Ecuador. The expected fish-out-of-water follies--or more specifically--American blondes-in-the-tropics follies ensue. But things get treacherous when the two vacationers get kidnapped and held for ransom by a gang of criminals.
It does come with a bit of self-aware humor, playing into ditzy and uncultured tourist tropes, even winkingly implying that the main characters might be worse than the actual kidnappers. With a tongue-in-cheek line, Emily says "We're not just white assholes." By the way, didn't The Chainsmokers recently say something similar? Anyhow, the self-poking doesn't necessarily make this raunchy comedy an appealing or enjoyable getaway. Schumer and Hawn totally have the potential to be a fun team, but the material they're given is so haphazard, ill-advised, and over-the-top in some of the worst ways. This is a case where the stars' series of promotional appearances on talk shows were funnier and more likable than anything in the actual movie.
The first 30 minutes or so aren't bad though, diving into some mother/daughter dynamics and humor that actually lands. (Okay, so one of the bits is a fart joke, but I laughed.) However, once the kidnapping plot kicks in, the film--aside from an amusing appearance from Christopher Meloni as an inept explorer--devolves into streaks of eye-rolling action, gross-outs, and crude humor, pushing things to the edge only to come off as a shallow romp of foreign country fears. I got the impression that this film could've been a lot better if it had gone in any other direction than the one chosen. I mean, not ANY direction, but you get what I'm saying. Like its characters, it probably should've just stayed put.
( 5/10 )
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