Meet Wesley (Nasim Pedrad). She’s down on her luck; she can’t get a job, she has no love life, and her car just got destroyed. But after a terrible date with Sean (Lamorne Morris) she trips and hits her head meeting the guy of her dreams, Jared (Robbie Amell). Things seem too good to be true until after a night of passion Jared seemingly disappears. Feeling spurned and in a fit of rage, Wesley sends him a horrendous email but it turns out Jared was in a car crash (in Mexico) and hadn’t been ghosting her at all. Of course the only logical thing for Wesley to do from here is travel to Mexico with her friends Brooke (Anna Camp) and Kaylie (Sarah Burns) to delete the email from Jared’s laptop.
“Desperados” is a story of love, romance, relationships, and things going completely wrong. The film explores modern dating, marriage, sexuality, accepting yourself and everything in between. Upon the surface the characters seem like stereotypical archetypes, but as the story progresses we learn there is a lot more to them. Ultimately the message being not to judge people too quickly and to accept yourself for who you are. All of us are guilty of trying to be someone else from time to time, but really all we can be is ourselves.
As the story evolves so does Wes’ desperate antics to get to the laptop. After multiple awkward encounters with the hotel staff, other patrons, and a dolphin, Wesley is thrown into jail in a hilarious climax. Of course all is not lost but I’ll save the ending for you to watch! The script does take some liberties with its plot development—and sometimes we have to suspend our belief to get the story moving—but overall it is solid, and there are some genuinely hilarious moments. Toby Gray as Nolan gives a particularly strong performance fraught with hilarity. “Desperados” is a blend of mishaps, feel good moments, and exploring what it means to be a modern human. While a lot of the plot may be predictable at times, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and I don’t feel it necessarily deserves the harsh reviews it has received online.
The main issue for me was that the film does take on a lot of life’s issues, but there isn’t time to explore all of them in depth; at times it does feel like something is missing. However the characters are developed well and the script does a lot to turn out preconceptions of people on their heads. Not only this, it’s important that we have equal representation from all walks of life on our screen, which is something the film does well.
If you want an enjoyable night in with some hearty feel good moments and plenty of laughs, “Desperados” is worth putting on your list.
