Fetish for slashing, chopping and breasts

Rating: 3/10 (3 August 2008)

Eli Roth wanted to make a statement. He wanted to show Americans about there ignorance of the world outside there own. Hence he decided to use his talent to make a ignorant film about a fictitious place in the hell hole of a former soviet block nation, where rich people visit to fulfill there dark desires of killing a person the way there minds intends. A well oiled industry of Slovenians performs the duty of finding the victims for there clients. Whether the statement the director intended to put forward had reached or not through this movie is not known, but it surely does not matter, as the message about the ignorance of common Americans is reiterated each week by several Hollywood films. Eli Roth need not have tried so hard.
But looking back at the movie Hostel by Eli Roth which is backed by master of gross, greasy violence in cinema Quinton Tarrantino does not does perform efficiently on the gore quotient. Yes they are very much there, but cannot be said that was the only thing in director's mind while making the movie. The three leads in this slasher movie are straight out of the American Pie franchise. All they have in there minds while moving around Europe are Breasts. Our frat boys, two friends from U.S and other one from Barcelona (so you pretty much know who is going to die first) give us a very insightful tour of Amsterdam's erotic world. Every corner they go girls over there are ready to get laid. A very whacky sequence of the boy's trip down a whore house gives us the idea of the broad and bold textures the makers have planned to use for the film ahead. So showing Amsterdam as sex capital of Europe is very much top of the director's mind. Heck! When our boys enter a local apartment, a couple are busy in there all stoned lovemaking session, oblivious of anyone else being in the room. This is where a very helpful person for our sex starved American tourists informs them about the much better quality of breasts available in the eastern block at Bratislava where due to some war there are very few men left, hence chicks over there are really sex starved pouncing over any stick. So we enter Bratislava, complete with run down factories and yes, the information is right, sex starved women. I mean, for the first hour or so there are breasts hanging all over Europe (some deeply affecting war they had!). So the scene is set and the boys have fulfilled there appetite on the very first night and the Barcelona guy has gone missing apparently with a Japanese girl, who is also present in the hostel with her other friend named Kaana. Now moving around Bratislava, one finds out that the only talent these people had in there country was Torture. They even had a torture museum. And the kids over there are ready to smash heads of anyone for even a packet of gums (after all they are nurtured by the best in the world). So now the movie begins, as our frat boys are sucked into the crowning glory of Bratislava, The torture industry (looking at the rates the clients pay and the voluntary work of the entire town for the cause, this industry must be the economical hub of Bratislava). So our boys go through the entire torturing process with only one survivor, who then goes over to save the Japanese Kaana from a maniac whose torture process of using a burner to melt the eyes off is the ultimate bottom. And then our frat boy hero, uses scissor to cut off Kaana's hanging eyeball (after which I lost my appetite for mustard sauce). Slashing, chopping and then some rescue effort from hell, this movie simply wont cheer you up.
Eli Roth's jumbled screenplay wastes too much time in build up to the ultimate slash fest and breasts. The boys are not exactly charming either for us to care for them. There is no room for creativity in the film except for a very chance confrontation of a client and our hero discussing about how to fulfill the rush for killing. In the end what was suppose to be a global Texas chain saw massacre kind of epic gore fest turned out to be a dampener. And the message Mr. Roth wanted to spread about the ignorance, this movie did made me check about Bratislava and Slovenia on the net. Success!