My two cents - SPOILERS

Since there's nothing on this site, other than a link to a review elsewhere, I thought I'd be the first to chime in with my take.

Based on reviews and the hate and low rating over at IMDB, I thought this might be a epic bomb, but I was intrigued by the fact that it was adapted from a novel by Joan Didion, one of my favorite writers. It included a list of fine actors: Anne Hathaway, Willem Defoe, Rosie Perez, Toby Jones, even Ben Affleck -- who is really not so fine, but still. So I decided to give it a peek on Netflix and was pleasantly surprised. Sure, it was a bit hard to follow at times; it had a complex plot, which made you pay attention and think about what was happening. It also featured some great acting, especially from Hathaway, a reporter for a Washington DC newspaper, covering the mess in the 80's that is Central America. Against her better judgement, she agrees to handle a shady deal for her seriously ill father, dropping off a shipment of surplus weaponry to Nicaragua, for which she's supposed to receive payment and then be her way back home. But it all goes wrong, and she is suddenly and unexpectedly dealing with some dangerous characters in order to extricate herself from the dicey situation she finds herself in. Since it is Nicaragua it involves the obvious subplot of dealing with the Contras, and you know how all that went given the Iran/Contra affair. As it turns to shit for her, she is forced to go on the run, and she doesn't know who to trust. Despite a few confusing elements, at the heart of it I really felt Anne's desperation at getting herself the hell out of Dodge with her scalp intact while still able to relay a story back to her DC paper thru her contact there (Rosie Perez).

This is not a movie for viewers who want an easy to follow plot all laid out in a straight line. I won't reveal the ending, but it was definitely not expected. It was also not quite the ending in the book, which would have been a better one, IMO. I give this movie a solid 7+.