Caribe (1988)

Prepare to get tangled in the jungles of Belize when an arms smuggler loses her partner in a deadly shootout and finds herself on the run in the tropics of Central America. Helen is an amateur, making her money as an illegal arms trader to Central American terrorists. And as she runs for her life after the deal goes bad, she has no choice but to trusts Jeff, a British Intelligence Agent - it is a life and death chase, where passion and loyalty are easily confused...That is a really long plot summary, but maybe that will help convince you to see this one. While nothing amazing, and not the sort of film I would typically watch... it has that 1980s action thing going on. Okay, not much (the action is pretty mild for Latin American terrorists) -- but enough.This is one of the first things director Michael Kennedy ever did. And, despite a score or more of films under his belt, none jump out as anything you have ever heard of. He did nine episodes of "The Kids in the Hall", but whether or not these were good episodes is beyond me.I would definitely give this another chance, especially if Shout Factory were to pick it up and turn it into something a little extra special.

Among other mis-wrought contrivances in this horribly-designed film was the mid-script change in the female lead from Rosanna Arquette to Kara Glover (what? you didn't notice that?). I love John Savage and Stephen McHattie (have for years) but they're the only +s in this 'minus' film. In addition, there were many (too many) technical flaws from the outset and throughout this movie, including badly-contrived love scenes (mostly non-existent), extremely poor camera work and editing, poor script management, terrible continuity and timing, extended frames which shouldn't have been extended. The only thing I can recommend is the 'lighting' (nicely done!)

Jessica Martorana's comment below tells you pretty much everything you need to know about "Caribe". I can stand a lot of things in low-budget action films, there is only one characteristic they MUST avoid: being boring. Unfortunately, "Caribe" is very boring. After all, there is only so much walking in the jungle / kayaking in the river one can take before losing interest, no matter how beautiful the locales may be. Stephen McHattie plays a reprehensible enough villain, but the two leads are not very charismatic, although Kara Glover does run / climb / swim / get covered in mud capably. Gore fans may also appreciate a gratuitous heart removal scene. Not a film to seek out. * out of 4.

Two explosives specialists who work together are involved in a scam down in Belize. They travel there to make the deal, but do not realize they are being followed by a British Secret Intelligence Agent (John Savage). The agent comes upon the dealers and soon bullets fly, causing the explosives expert Helen (Kara Glover) and the Intelligence Agent Jeff (Savage) to flee for their lives. While Helen and Jeff hide in the bush, they soon fall for one another and eventually hatch out a plan to wipe out the explosives dealers all together. In obliterating the dealers, they also detonate the explosives and later Helen realizes she will be a wanted woman back in the states. With Jeff's help, she obtains a new identity and he says that he will take care of her no matter what happens.Aside from the beautiful scenery of the tropics, this was a totally boring movie. The plot dragged on as I fast forwarded through much of the dreadful dialogue. Maybe had there been a better explanation of the characters and a more exciting plot it would have been a more interesting movie, but I doubt it.