Three-stabs, as this movie is legitimately funny and fun, and stars hilarious women, but they're mostly spending their precious energy worrying about dudes.
This is Desperados with an "S" is not the 1995 crime thriller with Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas, but the 2020 buddy/road trip/rom-com starring Nasim Pedrad (SNL, Aladdin), Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect), Lamorne Morris (New Girl), Sarah Burns (Big Little Lies, Wet Hot American Summer, American Vandal), Robbie Amell (Upload), and featuring a cameo by Heather Graham (Boogie Nights).
So, first of all, if no one makes a movie starring Nasim Pedrad and Sandra Bullock as sisters or a young mom/grown daughter Gilmore Girls kinda thing, the universe is broken. Pedrad has a similar goofy, self-conscious lovableness and even talks and uses her face in ways that remind me of Bullock. She easily leads this movie, is enchanting and irresistible.
The plot is pretty dumb- "a panicked young woman, with her reluctant friends in tow, rushes to Mexico to try and delete a ranting email she sent to her new boyfriend," but the sharp dialogue, acting, and chemistry between the characters makes it mostly work. It could be cut back by an hour, but it's an enjoyable meander.
Pedrad plays a former business-type person who went back to school to become a guidance counselor, but now can't find a job- she's too sex-positive for Catholic school, etc. She's also unlucky in love and her first date shows her being rejected by the approachable, handsome, funny Morris, and then concussing herself in the street where she meets-cute Amell. He likes the docile, head-injured, quiet version of her, and she decides that that's the trick to keeping a man. Then he disappears, totally ghosting her, so she and her friends (Burns and Camp) get wasted and write him a long and mean email. THEN he calls and says he was traveling in Mexico when he got in a car accident and has been in a coma this whole time, but that he really likes her. So she and her friends scamper to Mexico to try to erase the email evidence that she's snarky and can hold her own, from all of his devices before he's discharged from the hospital.
In Mexico, Morris happens to be there, of course, and as the lead is trying to fix the shit with the other guy, she shows the real her to the guy she's meant to be with, and they become flirting friends. He is widowed, giving him a sympathetic backstory and depth. Camp's character has a baby who is mentioned in passing once, barely, and her husband recently cheated on her- she's on this trip to figure out what to do about that. The third friend, played by Burns, is deep into her fertility journey, and intends to meet up with a spiritual guru (Graham) while in Mexico. By the end, they've all arched their way to solutions, tested themselves and their friendship, and hung out in bikinis a lot.
It's light and fun, but a little stabby. Watch it and lemme know what you think!
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