Snatched

The New Yorker Jonathan Levine directs the comedy Snatched (2017). In this movie, Levine satirizes the typical motivations an American decides to travel to the Latin American “paradise”. Emily (Amy Schumer) convinces her boring mother Linda (Goldie Hawn) to be her partner in a journey to Ecuador. Ecuador for Emily is not the typical resort vacations in some Mexican beach, but rather it is a real exotic adventure that can make her forget about her pathetic life (and it is also a non-refundable ticket that must be used). Ironically, they stay in a fancy resort at the beach, but Emily wants to experience the real Ecuador with a handsome guy she just meets at the pub.

Without listening to the advice of two retiree US intelligence agents, Emily goes to a party in the middle of a jungle landscape with a stranger in which Emily parties as Latinos do, learning capoeira? The day after she brings her mother to an adventure with the same guy who is supposed to take them to see waterfalls, but he was taking them far enough so they can get kidnapped. On the next morning, they wake up in Colombia and try to escape. Trying to get help, they find another American called Roger Simmons in a small village who appears to be their hope for salvation. Roger wears an explorer outfit and is very confident taking the two women through the jungle, though he has been in Latin America only for three weeks.

This movie portrays the ingenuity and imprudence of Americans when they travel to Latin America. Tourist look for adventure in an exotic place. But they also put themselves in dangerous situations, consciously like the American that pretended to be an explorer and the retiree agents that are looking for some action, or unconsciously like Emily and her mother who were too foolish that it becomes part of a predictable and laughable comedy.

Another interesting portrayal of the previous one (not about Latin America alone, but about American in Latin America) concerns foreign intervention for security reasons. Emily’s brother Jeffry calls and goes repeated times to the policy after he is informed of the kidnapping. Though of all the resources the police department has for tracking people, they do nothing until it is almost too late. American intelligence agents appear at the end of like the saviours, but when all the work was already done. The US embassy in Bogota neither could help. Basically, the message is that once you cross the border, the United States will not protect any of its citizens (but it could).

If this plot was not a comedy, a kidnapping and no support from the US will be terrifying. However, Levine makes those events seem better than they look, and mother and daughter even go again on a trip after this awful experience. Latin America is in this movie a place for adventure (though it might be a dangerous one). Even after experiencing violence and almost being killed, the trip was probably better than whatever they could be doing back home, and even inspires them to travel again. The plot might not be clearly promoting or opposing Ecuador, Colombia or any other Latin American country as a travel destination, but it shows that it is the American tourist who put themselves in danger by idealizing Latin America as that exotic place full of adventure, but by overestimating their own capacities and of their country. Latin America becomes attractive because it makes visitors leave their comfort zone.