this doctor taking tourists' organs

escapes too quickly and the rest of the film is just standard chase stuff.

the villian is a doctor that harvests organs from tourists his hired goons trap and kidnap.

This aspect which should be the 'big reveal' when the gang winds up in trouble,is less surprising and powerful. Since it's already explained long before the villian meets the charecters. Because there are some brief early sequences with the doctor,showing how they're planning to go after the charecters,and why they need them,and how 'evil' the doctor is.

Though without the doctor scenes earlier,there would be no gore or death(what little there is- 2 brief scenes) until the finale of the film.

Meanwhile the gang is lured into going up to some persons house deep in the jungle in the middle of nowhere. And around the 1 hour mark is when the charecters meet the evil doctor. The doctor then operates on a nude female while giving a chilling monologue as he removes her organs. This is the only really gory scene in the film,and it is a good gutsy sequence for a major studio release(the fact that they actually combined full nudity,with gore,may be offensive to some people,but then again..how else would someone be operated on?).

Durring this sequence the rest of the surviving charecters,break free,and it's a standard chase to the finale,and quite confusing and not that thrilling.

Now the reveal of the doctor so early in the film was a bad choice. Since we're already aware of his intentions,and becomes more annoying that the film takes so long before there is any 'payoff'. And it makes his reveal at the house less shocking/surprising,than if we like the charecters didn't know what was in store before hand.

This is where Hostel succeeded immensely in my opinion(despite reviews,Roth himself in interviews,and even the back of the dvd case spoiling). We never know what exactly is going on and why,until the big reveal with the "American Businessman" scene.

We're given little tips,we know some people are not trustworthy,but aren't exactly sure why. During the first full torture scene of the film,where a 'nice' charecter from earlier is revealed as the torturer. We're left to assume,it is he torturing/murdering all these people and that's it.

But then as Paxton tries to figure out what happened to his friends and what's going on. A far more sinister and disturbing sick revelation is discovered,which is fully revealed with the encounter of the "American Businessman". Where we find out,that people are paying to do this too people for a variety of reasons. And that scene despite being darkly funny,is also very unsettling as well. Since the victim trying to escape,is now face to face with a sick fuck hell bent on 'enjoying' inflicting torture on another and Paxton can't give himself away.

All in all, I thought Hostel was wonderfully paced from beginning to end. It kept me interested in the proceedings and wanting to know what's going on, how frightening it would be in the charecters situation(far from home,no one to trust) and delivered a wicked roller coaster ride.

But anyway,back to Turistas,don't let the one main operation sequence get you to bolt to the theater to see it. Since trust me,you'll be letdown in the extreme. It is a good sequence though,but it's not worth paying todays ticket prices to see.

Wait for rental on dvd or cable,trust me!

It has a scalpel cutting someone open! How much more direct can you get?

The surgery scene was gruesome and cool, but they immediately killed any payoff to this scene by letting everyone else escape (or mercifully get shot instead of being disected alive) during or immediately after the act.

In Hostel you see the first guy get tortured, so when the second guy gets captured it's suspenseful because you know what's in store for him. But with Turistas they let everyone off the hook too quickly. Instead of playing off the film's one interesting angle, it's abandoned as soon as it is introduced so the director can film yet more underwater stuff and a bunch of unlit confusion. The Descent was able to get away with these sorts of "chaos in the dark" scenes, but this director doesn't have the talent to make that sort of scene work.