For a change we will be having a heroine today in Joan Wilder (played by Kathleen Turner), a romance novel writer based in New York City. She stays indoors always until she books a flight for Colombia. Her sister Elaine (played by Mary Ellen Trainor) was kidnapped by smugglers Ira (played by Zack Norman) and Ralph (played by Danny De Vito) and they ransomed her for a map that Elaine sent to Joan.
En route to the meet up point, Joan was misdirected by Colonel Zolo (played by Manuel Ojeda) hoping to get the map from her. He tricked her in boarding the wrong bus to Cartagena, the meeting point. Ralph saw her board the wrong bus and pursued her into the jungles of Colombia. While going through the jungle, the bus crashed into a parked car and was wrecked. Joan was stranded and Colonel Zolo made his move against Joan, who then was saved just in time by Jack Colton (played by Michael Douglas), an exotic bird smuggler.
Joan then requests Jack to help her reach Cartagena but the latter demanded to be paid. Agreeing at USD375, the two went on through the jungle to Cartagena while Colonel Zolo is still in hot pursuit. The duo reached a small village and met with the local drug lord Juan (played by Alfonso Arau), a huge fan of Joan Wilder's novels. He helped them escape Colonel Zolo when they were almost apprehended in the village. While they were in the nearby town, they decided to decipher the map and look for the treasure before they hand it over to Ira and Ralph.
They eventually found the treasure, an emerald called the "Corazon" or heart, Ralph takes the stone at gunpoint, but when Zolo's troops appeared, it gave Jack the chance to get the emerald back. In their escape from Ralph and Zolo's men, Joan and Jack were separated on separate sides of a river, Joan has the map and Jack has the stone. Jack tells Joan how to reach Cartagena and promises he will meet her there.
In Cartagena, Joan gives the map to Ira and true to his word, he releases her sister Elaine. Zolo then arrives with his captives, Jack and Ralph. Looking for the emerald, Zolo tries to torture Joan but the emerald was found to be with Jack all along. Jack tried to heave the stone to a crocodile pool but was caught by Zolo. Being close to the pool, a wayward crocodile bit off Zolo's hand that held the emerald, maiming him and the crocodile swallows the hand along with the stone. Jack follows the crocodile and tries to prevent it from escaping but he has to let go of it to save Joan against Zolo.
Zolo eventually falls into the crocodile pool and dies, Ira escaped when the police arrived, leaving behind Ralph. Jack dove off the pier to try to go after the crocodile with Joan and Elaine left at the pier to be with the authorities.
Joan and her sister went back to New York and Joan has written a new book about her latest adventure in Colombia and her editor loved it so much. Another best seller she says. On her way home, she finds a huge yacht on a trailer on the streets of New York and wondered why it was there in the first place. It turned out that Jack owns this yacht and he tells Joan that the crocodile with the emerald had a fatal case of indigestion.
We love the onscreen chemistry between Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas here and with this, the two put up a great show for us. Both were great actors and they didn't disappoint even with a very cheesy script. A love story with a little bit of hate, joy and love is cheesy in our books. Yet the two played with it with gusto and finesse that we forgot its a cheesy movie in the onset.
Pacing was nice and there was not a boring moment for us. We didn't even have to push that forward button if there were boring moments. Action was great and we like the Little Mule, you better watch it so you'll know what we are writing about here.
If you are a fan of both actors and the comedy romance genre, make sure to add this to your playlist. This is not on Netflix, but most likely it would be on Amazon Prime (we don't have an account with them anymore).
