Camino is a 2016 dark comedy about two beer loving friends who accidentally steal black market organs from a pair of dangerous hit men.
After Kevin Smith made it big with his low budget feature Clerks and Quentin Tarantino was mopping up a whole bunch of awards for Pulp Fiction in the late 90’s, many studios were looking all over for the next big independent filmmaker. It’s just too bad that writer and director Justin Herring didn’t release his feature Camino before the days of streaming media. I think it would have gone on to be quite a success if promoted right.
Camino tells the story of two best friends Mark (Matthew James) and Jack (Cody Michael Davids), who spend their free time stealing coolers out of trucks for beer. Either that or asking their stoner friend Trevor (Jordan Michael Brickman) to help pick up some if he’s not sleeping. One morning Mark wakes up to find out that Becky (Bonnie Gayle), a girl he most recently had sex with is pregnant. When Jack finds this out, his best solution is to find beer so that Mark can get properly buzzed before meeting her. However their plan takes a slight detour when they accidentally steal a cooler containing human kidneys from a pair of hit men (Reynolds Washam and Simon Phillips). Will they be able out-smart both the criminals and the cops who are hot on their tails? Will Mark be able to find out if he is the actual father of Becky’s kid or not? Will Jack finally go into work to help his uncle Alvin (D.B. Stewart)?
Camino does it’s characters right in how – despite having similar traits to those in numerous other films – they still feel like real people. It’s easy to compare Mark and Jack to that of Dante and Randall from Clerks or the like of the two hit men (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock) from Nurse Betty. They may be fictional but both Herring and co-writer John Patrick Hughes writes them with integrity and honesty. Well, except Becky.
Don’t misunderstand me, Gayle is a great actress and this critique has nothing to do with her performance. I just never understood why Mark would want to be anywhere near this woman much less knock her up. All Becky does is yell and insult the guy. In every one of their scenes together – except one – they are arguing. Mark tells Jack that he loves her but I never understood why. And when the hit men do find her, I was never all that scared because I wasn’t invested in who she is as a character.
However, James and Davids are what’s best about this movie. They have this great chemistry with each other and I would love to see both of these characters in perhaps a road trip movie maybe set ten years later. Washam and Phillips do very well as the hit men, and while they do add the right amount of tension to this story, they almost deserve a film centered only on them without any other subplots. Except of course the police who are chasing them. Throw these cops in together in any new feature and it would work.
If Camino were released when VHS and laserdisc were still around I could see this becoming a cult favorite, especially in a time where both Pulp Fiction and Clerks enjoyed great success. Herring and Hughes might have gotten a chance to work with a big studio for their second feature, feel upset that they sold out and than go back to their indie roots for their third feature. I hope they continue to make more movies because this one shows that they have the potential to do even more amazing things if they are given the right kind of support from the studios.
Full disclosure, Camino is written and directed by fellow film critic and podcaster Justin Herring, hosts of the Casual Cinecast podcast. A recent a guest on our Cinema Recall Podcast, we discussed Wes Anderson‘s Moonrise Kingdom. Please help support this feature and watch it on Amazon today.