WITHOUT A PADDLE: NATURE'S CALLING

Director: Ellory Elkayem

Stars: Oliver James, Kristopher Turner, Rik Young, Madison Riley, Amber McDonald

Year: 2009

Rating: PG-13

Ben (Oliver James) and Zach (Kristopher Turner) have been best friends since grade school. A pair or nerds who came into their own (sort of) in high school, Zach's always been the class clown while Ben was the shy brain ... but through it all they've stuck together. As this direct-to-DVD, sort-of sequel to 2004's Without a Paddle opens, the boys (played by young teen actors) have just begun their freshman year of high school, and already Ben has fallen for the school's earth-conscious environmental activist, Heather - having eagerly been the first to sign her petition banning dissection in the school's biology lab. But when Heather is expelled from school a few days later for some radical behavior, Ben is crestfallen - smitten by an unrequited love that's to haunt him for years to come.

Flash-forward to both men in their early-to-mid twenties. Zach is still the same free spirit - a cute, laidback cut-up who works as a CNA in a nursing home for the elderly. He loves his patients, truly interacts with and cares for them - and his patients love him in return. Zach still loves his buddy Ben, too - but now Ben's a young paralegal in an upscale law firm, and has so much work dumped on him he seems to have no time or even desire to hang out with Zach anymore. The two best friends have begun growing apart, something we can all relate to, and though Zach keeps trying Ben just doesn't seem too, too interested.

Until Zach gets an odd request from a dying patient. Old Mrs. Bessler (sweetly portrayed by Ellen Albertini Dow) has a bad heart, and hasn't much time. She's one of Zach's favorite people at the home, and in turn she dotes on Zach a lot; so much so, she makes her last request on earth of him: to go to the woods in rural Portland (Oregon) where her granddaughter disappeared a few years before, and bring her granddaughter back to see her before she dies. It's a strange request - one that Zach doesn't even know how to begin - but he's unable to say no to Mrs. Bessler, who hands him a file folder with all the information she has on where her granddaughter could be.

And when Zach opens the folder, the first thing he sees is a photo of the young woman - and immediately recognizes her as Heather, the now-grown-up version of the same girl Ben had fallen for in high school. It's the final push he needs to convince Ben to go along with him, and the two - along with Mrs. Bessler's British step-grandson Nigel (played effectively annoying by Rik Young), who has his own agenda for making the trip - rent some gear and set off to find the missing girl ... unaware just how prepared they are for life in the wild.

The film, from here, becomes a buddy film, as Ben and Zach re-bond as friends - and weather everything from Nigel's annoying stories, to a harrowing water-rafting ride, to local yokels who steer them toward Heather (who now, supposedly, calls herself "Earthchild"), to some particularly ferocious and hyperactive squirrels (in one of the funniest sequences in the film - though way too short) ... all of this while unknowingly being watched and stalked through the woods by a pair of sinister guys who may or may not be a pair of ex-con brothers with a particular grudge against Ben.

Oliver James and Kristopher Turner shine in this film - both are in fine form, and Turner in particular is a terrific young actor who's long gone unappreciated in the industry. Rik Young makes for a good third wheel - annoying at first, but the character Nigel eventually does grow on you.

And the film's not bad, it's just not ... anything special. Nothing viewers haven't seen before, and the laughs are more intermittent than they are constant. Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling doesn't suck - it's just not anything too special. Good for an evening's entertainment, and even better than your average direct-to-DVD title ... but beyond James, Turner and Young, it's otherwise forgettable at best. **1/2 - Reel Mediocre-Reel Cool