Romancing the Stone – Big hair and bigger snakes

Someone told me that ‘Romancing the Stone’ was actually a romantic comedy, rather than an action movie.  Yeah, I guess there’s an element of ‘romance’ in as much as the two lead characters are male and female, therefore if you even know what a ‘film’ is you’ll realise there’s going to be an element of two people getting together in the midst of an outlandish adventure.  However, I still always see this film as an ‘action’ movie, rather than luvvy-duvvy stuff!

A writer (Kathleen Turner) finds her sister has been kidnapped in a South American country and sets off to rescue her (or rather just pay the desired ransom).  Once in the jungle territory she finds herself woefully out of her depth, but luckily she seems to bump into the only other American in the continent (Michael Douglas) who is skilled in the ways of jungle survival.  I can’t quite recall which came first – this, or ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  Either way, they seem to co-exist in the same universe when it comes to tones (although Temple of Doom strays into the supernatural, as opposed to a drugs cartel, but for the early part of the film they’re near identical in terms of tone). 

Not just do our bickering heroes have each other and the terrain they’re stranded in, they also have Danny DeVito’s slimy little character hot on their heels, not to mention a tonne of drug lords and, of course, the kidnappers.  So there’s plenty of time for conflict to come into play here.  Personally, I think the film has stood up to the tests of time in terms of action and entertainment.  There’s clearly plenty of chemistry between the two leads and the film’s a lot of fun.  However, you can tell it was filmed in the eighties (not just by Douglas’ ‘mullet’) due to how the woman is basically portrayed as a ‘damsel in distress’ type character and the man is clearly in charge at all times.  Then you also have the stereotypical South American characters who are all shady (at best!) or simply drug dealers.  If you can get over the fact that this was just how films were made thirty years ago then you should find this a fun film to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon (and make sure you see the ‘full’ version rather than the one that’s been ‘cut for TV’ as it contains a lot more ‘croc action!’).

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one