This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Where Lawyers Spend Their Vacation
Plot Overview
Tall, dark and handsome. "Serious"
Paxton (Jay Hernandez), “handsome” Josh (Derek Richardson),
and circumcised Oli Ericson (Eythor Gudjonsson) “the king
of swing” are on a holiday touring Europe. Pax wants to store
up memories to sustain him through studying for the California State
Bar. Josh wants to get over a breakup ostensibly over his being a
senior, she a junior, and then he graduated, although some unspoken
issue remains in play. He's a little light in the sneakers. They meet
up with Oli an Icelander 
in Paris where he's come to enjoy freedom from his cage. He'd been
married eight years and got the seven-year itch, we suppose.
From gai Paris these three backpackers travel throughout
France then on to Switzerland, Belgium, Amsterdam—where
this movie picks up—and eventually to Barcelona, seeking sex,
drugs and booze. Amsterdam is a blast and there they meet a Russian
Alexei (Lubomir Bukovy) who clues them in on the ultimate tourist
destination for uninhibited sex and good times: It's Bratislava in
East Europe where local men are scarce because of a putative war,
so the women are hot and horny; they love any man with a foreign
accent: Europeans and especially Americans.
Josh connects up with Svetlana
(Jana Kadeábková) from Prague, Paxton with an Italian
babe Natalya (Barbara Nedeljáková) whose mother is Russian,
and Oli with Vala (Jana Havlickova) the desk girl at their hostel.
The next morning Oli has failed to return and they write him off as
a flake. But when the following morning Josh the responsible one fails
to show up and then Japanese guest Kana (Jennifer Lim) tells Pax her
reliable friend Yuki (Keiko Seiko) is missing, too, he buttonholes
Natalya in a local watering hole and she takes him for a ride.
He's getting prime preparation for being a lawyer in the real world.
He buys off a gamine gang with peanuts, as in lawyering he will
sometimes have to cut his losses and do a plea deal. He tries
and fails to rescue Kana, as he at eight had failed to rescue from
drowning a five-year-old girl in Lake Michigan, with whom he at least
made some eye-contact before she went under. 
He can give his clients comfort with his presence, even for the
cases he doesn't win. Oli was in the wrong cage at the wrong time.
Clients bring troubles upon themselves for whom their lawyers
can but go through the motions. Josh a writer-to-be made an impassioned
appeal to his torturer for release, ranking himself a potentially
great writer in company with other potential greats who didn't survive
their life experiences either. Sometimes a lawyer can win on
appeal when success is moot; it's too late for his client to enjoy
what limited years he has left or to spend the recovered money from
the case. And for Pax to survive his ride, he will have to be clever
and ruthless. But don't expect a lawyer to talk about his vacation,
because it was not without breaking some laws along the way.
Ideology
One of Kenny Rogers's songs concerned a chance
meeting with “The Gambler” on a train, who offered the
passenger the advice that “the secret to surviving is knowing what to
throw away and knowing what to keep.” The refrain of the song goes:
You've got to know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away, Know when to run. You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.
This wisdom of the gambling man's repartee is old as the hills and was passed on by a raconteur, Agur in Proverbs 30:1, whose four metaphors offered the same life advice as did Rogers's Gambler. That we find in, (Prov. 30:29-31) “There be three things which go well, yea, four are comely in going: A lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any; A greyhound; an he goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up.”
We have Agur's “lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any,” and we have Rogers's “know[ing] when to hold 'em.” In our movie when Pax has a hammer and opportunity, he strikes and doesn't hold back.
We have Agur's “king, against whom there is no rising up,” and we have Rogers's “Know[ing] when to fold 'em” A king who knows when to give in to his subjects doesn't experience any uprising. Pax plays possum when that's his best option.
We have Agur's “he goat also”
and we have Rogers's “Know[ing] when to walk away.” Pax
eludes his pursuers on the steps of a seven-story, derelict abattoir.
We have Agur's “greyhound” and Rogers's “Know[ing] when to run.” He hits the road in a purloined car with the pedal to the metal and runs away from it at a roadblock.
The gambler gave the advice:
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.
It ain't over till the fat lady sings. Wait for the credits. When Paxton having gotten wise curses Natalya, “You effing bitch,” she retorts with, “I get a lot of money for you, and that makes you my bitch.” Yeah, but does she get to spend it?
Production Values
“” (2005) was written and directed by Eli Roth who also wrote and directed Cabin Fever (2002) another horror flick featuring students on a break gone bad. This one has Quentin Tarantino as its executive producer. It stars Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson and Eythor Gudjonsson. The two leads Hernandez and Richardson did okay in a plot that switched temper halfway through. The rest of the actors also did a good job, even the ones gone in a blink.
MPAA rated it R for brutal scenes of torture and violence, strong sexual content, language and drug use. There's an unrated version available, too—the one I saw. It was mostly in English, and we could figure out what the other languages were getting at. Of course, whistling, laughing, and screaming are universal. The music was intense, but then so was the film. Its 1½ hour run time wasn't too short as one wants it to end. It had really decent camera work with spooky action at the edges.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
“Hostel” for its brutality and gore does not recommended itself to sensitive audiences. Fact is it's kind of over the top, be forewarned. If you liked “Cabin Fever,” you can probably take this one, too.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Better than watching TV. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Rogers, Kenny. Songwriter Don Schlitz. “The Gambler.” Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Pub. LLC. Web.
bibles.n7nz.org