Tropix (2004)

Purely Joyful Movie!

As Good As It Gets

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Great, fast-paced, lots of black humor. You want to really hate the bad guy (and bad girl).Gotta love the "duck season / rabbit season" back-and-forth with the gun in the mangrove setting :-) Make sure you listen for the piano (instrumental) piece ("Catedral") that's heard while the woman is raised by the helicopter towards the end of the movie. Simply beautiful.Tropix certainly portrays the kind of sleazy Americans we often see, unfortunately, in certain parts of Costa Rica.An amazing production considering the small, indie budget. As far as I know, it's one of the few US indie films that was produced entirely in Costa Rica.

The technical aspects of the film are fantastic, however the acting and the writing, or at least the delivery of the lines, leaves much to be desired.Perhaps time was short or money was short or both were short or perhaps the actors and filmmakers are all friends and so a critical eye was not cast on the acting/timing.However, in order to make such a technically fine movie there must be talent in abundance, just a question of letting it flow freely.You are left wondering, at certain times, alright more times than not, why someone does not just grab the gun from someone else, or at least run a bit faster when they are fleeing for their lives, instead of strolling away while the would be killer is after them.It seems as if rich NYU film school kids were down in Costa Rica and said: "Hey! Let's make a movie about money laundering and over-development of our tropical paradise !" But the technical aspects were of such a high standard that you know there is true talent there but something essential was missed, perhaps, by accident.

A good rental. The director took some liberties with camera angles and flashback scenes in an attempt to be creative. In some cases it worked, in others it was distracting. The plot was decent and included a nice little twist. The acting was good in a campy, independent film way and the scenery breathtaking. As someone who has been to Costa Rica a few times (but for the Eco, not the plastic surgery though that was a funny commentary on the vain state of the world), it was nice to see the country depicted well. The people of Costa Rica are wonderful and warm, it's greedy folks like those in the movie that will ruin it.In addition, actor Ryan Barton-Grimley is very sexy!