Ruby Cairo

When Bessie Faro's (Andie MacDowell) husband Johnny (Viggo Mortensen) dies in a plane crash in Veracruz, Mexico, she finds that his air cargo business is deeply in the red. When she visits the airline's terminal in Veracruz, she discovers her husband was pumping large amounts of money into bank accounts all over the world.

I watched this as part of an appreciation for Liam Neeson, and was sad to see this really was not a big role for him. Of course, it was an even smaller role for Mortensen (who was not yet famous), but this is not a Neeson film. Now, that being said, it is still a decent mystery.

I would really like to see this again and get a better feel for it. I get the impression it was not widely appreciated in its day and could get a better hearing now (2014).

This movie has a pretty decent first half hour or so as Andie McDowell learns her pilot husband has been killed in Mexico and she needs to go there to identify the body. She then discovers that he had stashes of cash hidden at various banks around the world, and because of how well she knew him is able to transcribe his very elaborate decoding system (each bank falls under a different alias, and the way McDowell figures out which alias goes with which bank in which country actually got me pretty good while watching it) Unfortunately the movie pretty much falls apart once she gets to the last bank and is told that that account was closed out by the account holder himself. (which of course is impossible since she just identified his body earlier in the movie) No spoilers here, but McDowell then spends the rest of the movie trying to track down how that could be, eventually hooking up with Liam Neeson along the way. Neeson by the way has almost nothing to do in this movie...given his above the title billing, you'd think he'd have more to do, but no, his entire role is to look adoringly at McDowell, they have a nice little montage of walking around together and they climb a hill at one point, but Neeson is literally given nothing to do with the actual plot of the movie that we're watching. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, but you know he's known these days as a man of action, so to see him standing idly by while McDowell does all the sleuthing is kind of funny to me. The last half hour is a real let down btw. Again after that first half hour, I was thinking we're in for a semi decent suspense film (and we're getting a decent-ish travelogue here as well as McDowell is hopscotching from one country to another) but that last half hour loses so much steam that the ending came as a real disappointment to me.

I just can't seem to tell the difference between Ruby Cairo, As Good As Dead, The End of Violence, and Harrison's Flowers, since they all star Andie MacDowell searching for her lost husband! If you've never seen any of them and have no clue where to start, just pick your favorite of the husbands and rent that one. Do you like Cary Elwes? Rent As Good As Dead. Like Bill Pullman? Try The End of Violence. Were you always a sucker for David Strathairn? Check out Harrison's Flowers. And if Viggo Mortensen floats your boat more than the others, watch Ruby Cairo.

In this one, Viggo dies in a plane crash, so Andie doesn't exactly chase after him. She does chase after his financial records, which are left in a total mess. She soon learns he didn't walk the straight-and-narrow, and as one clue leads her to another to another, she's sent on a trip around the world to find out more about what he left behind. Once in Egypt, hence the title, Andie meets Liam Neeson, the head of a philanthropic organization. Fans of Viggo, don't despair: there are quite a few flashbacks to satisfy your eye candy. And if you love Andie, this sexy thriller is a fun one! If you liked it, check out Harrison's Flowers next. It's a touch more violent, but it's still good.

Any film that can draw you in completely, as this movie did with me, succeeds. I missed the first ten minutes not knowing even the plot, and I was immediately taken in by Andie MacDowell's quest for answers regarding her husband.

I'm surprised by the many negative comments and reviews posted here. This was one of the few movies (like "Pyscho") that took me on sort of a ride that I didn't want to end. This movie was intelligent and I found it to be a great escape as Ruby travelled around the world. I'll certainly never visit Athens, Greece, or stand on top of one of the pyramids. But I felt like I was there. Whomever said this was boring must have had their eyes closed the entire time. I never realized how beautiful Andie MacDowell was until I saw this film or what a really good actress she was. Liam Neeson was a plus even if his role was rather short.

You can bet I'll be recommending this film to others as I do whenever I see a really good movie. Hope to see this released on DVD soon.

Run of the mill thriller which has a woman searching high and low for a missing hubby thought to have been killed in a plane crash. A few old baseball cards provided clues to a mysterious humanitarian aid group and finally leads her to a country in Africa where all questions were answered.