Puerto Vallarta Squeeze (2004)

Based on the novel by the name, the thriller Puerto Vallarta Squeeze, was a story that never should have happened. No matter how good a film may be, I can not get into it when there is a huge and obvious plot hole. The film wasn't terrible, but it could have been so much better if they had just eliminated the obvious! Scott Glenn stars as a CIA hit-man, who after executing his target, kills a potential witness, someone he shouldn't have killed. Following orders, his team leaves him stranded in the small Mexican city of Puerto Vallarta. The hit-man needs to get back to the states and decides to pays a couple to take him on a ride to the boarder, never informing them that the Mexican authorities, as well as the CIA, are chasing him. What doesn't make sense to me, is if this guy is such a big time hit-man, and he's on the run, why not just steal the car? It really wasn't necessary to drag this couple into it, when all they did was slow him down. This could have been a terrific action thriller, instead it was full of this non-sense, involving this random couple. Scott Glenn stars, and he's one of these guys whose name you don't recognized, but who has had minor roles in huge films for decades. Even I didn't realize until I looked him, but Glenn was in The Silence of The Lambs and The Hunt For Red October. He was very good, but the problem was that it wasn't believable. He wasn't injured, he didn't know these people, and there was no reason for him to take them along. They hindered his getaway and just destroyed the story. Also worth noting is that this was the last film to feature teen heartthrob, Jonathan Brandis, who killed himself in 2003. I've always liked Brandis, as he had a major role in one of my favorite TV shows, Seaquest DSV. He didn't get much work as an adult, which is considered to be one of the major reasons behind his suicide, but it was interesting to see one of his few adult roles. He didn't play a very interesting character, but only ever knowing him as a teen, I really wanted to see what he had become before the tragedy. Puerto Villarta Squeeze had a great back story, but it wasn't the focus of the film. The hit-man's interaction with this bizarre couple was, and it just ruined the whole thing.

Scott Glen plays a hit-man for the CIA in Mexico who takes out an extra target when he's spotted during a hit. Unfortunately its a US serviceman and he's forced to go on the run from his handler (Harvey Keitel) who vows to bring him down. Hooking up with a writer (Craig Wasson) and his girlfriend he heads for the border to the US. Good little thriller is the sort of thing you'd put on on a slow Saturday night. Well made its clear the people involved in the film actually cared about what they were doing and the result is film thats perfect for a night on couch with popcorn and soda. To be certain you won't remember it a week or so after the fact, but it will entertain you when reruns of old blockbusters are your only choice on cable.

This movie must have come out when I was deployed. I'd never heard anything about it. I was cruising the local Video Hut and noticed Scott Glenn on the cover of this movie that was stuck down on the bottom shelf. I'm a Scott Glenn fan so I rented it. I couldn't have been happier with the movie. It had enough action for me and enough romance for my wife. She enjoyed the movie just as much as I did. The little Latin girl was certainly a looker. Scott Glenn should be up there in age but he is still pretty dang buff. I'm glad that he is still able to do the action scenes. I could have done without the Scott Glenn bikini scene though.

Basically a chase thriller in which an experienced hit man working for an unnamed government agency (Scott Glenn) takes personal revenge on a former friend, irritating his employers and prompting them to send a team of two other hit men (including Harvey Keitel) to rub him out. But the wily Glenn takes two hostages (Craig Wasson and Giovanna Zacarias) and leads the pursuing pair on a merry chase along "the highways and by-ways of this dysentery factory." In the end, the unnamed government agency is satisfied that Glenn is offed and the incident closed. In reality, Glenn and Zacarias have fallen for one another, made a successful escape, and are living a happy life in a mountain cabin.The fact that the government agency is unnamed should give you a hint about what kind of story this is. It's one that won't step on anybody's toes, including the CIA and Mexican law enforcement agents.The story as sketched in above is really rather skeletal, I know, but there's not really that much more to the plot. The performances vary a lot in their quality. Scott Glenn is his taciturn icy self, his face and torso more etched with experience than ever. Giovanna Zacarias is by no means beautiful in any ordinary sense, yet her character is intelligent, empathic, and proud. She has strong features and glistening black eyes and although she may have been a whore ("the woman of desperation") she might just be the kind of puta you would think about taking home to Mamma. Keitel combines being laid back with being as tense as an unsprung jack-in-the-box. Craig Wasson sounds like Albert Brooke and looks a little like him. He does not deliver anything I could detect as a believable line.If you are being kept captive by a CIA hit man and wanted to sneak away, would YOU constantly argue with him and your girl friend? Would you shout at him in a public restaurant? In other words, would you do everything you possibly could to make him keep his eye on you? That's not entirely Wasson's fault. He can only say what the script orders him to, and the script doesn't really give anyone too much to work with. The betrayed hero of Vietnam is already a cliché, with his flashbacks and bitterness leading him into violence. In the course of the film, he is humanized by Zacarias ("Luz", great name). And once she understands the source of his torment she undergoes a kind of Mazatlan Syndrome and bonds with him.There's something else that creeps into the story, or tries to, from time to time. There's religious imagery all over the place. And there's a good deal of talk about God and forgiveness. It simply doesn't hang together though. (The novel might have dealt with these questions a little more effectively.) The last time Glenn prayed was when he was being tortured by the Vietnamese, and he prayed for death. When God didn't answer, he gave up on God and believes God now reciprocates. Well, Luz still believes in forgiveness and she must have been right because that mountain cabin at the end is sure idyllic.