#ILiveYouWhereYouEscape — that was the clever hashtag I saw on a friend’s post in my Facebook newsfeed commenting on a “Belize” mention in a recent episode of “Ray Donovan.” Billionaire Andrew Finney had just murdered Varick Strauss in a strange lover’s quarrel and as a part of the clean up under Donovan’s direction, it was decided that the public would learn that Strauss had stolen Finney’s money and escaped to Belize.
The hit Showtime series isn’t the first Hollywood production to use Belize as a getaway destination when things go awry. The highly successful “Breaking Bad” that aired on AMC, even got a carefully crafted PR response from the Belize Tourism Board when Saul, the sleazy attorney of Walter White, a chemistry professor-turned-meth dealer, suggested Belize as the place for White’s brother-in-law and local Drug Enforcement Agency official to be assassinated. The “send him to Belize” line in the 2013 episode, “Buried”, became so popular that it has even secured its place in the Urban Dictionary as a “euphemism for “whacking” or “liquidating” a problematic individual or rival.”
But prior to my home country getting its notorious moments of glory in these Emmy-award winning American TV thrillers, Belize also got its seconds of fame on the big screen.
In the 2011 smash hit “Ocean’s 11,” Rusty Ryan played by Hollywood mega star Brad Pitt tells Danny Ocean played by George Clooney, “I’d never been to Belize.” Pitt rolled out the line just as he and Clooney left lunch with their wealthy friend and former casino owner Reuben Tishkoff who gave them some advice and caution with robbing Las Vegas casinos. Even though it just lasted for a blip, it immediately caught the attention of Belizean fans everywhere. Catch Pitt’s line two minutes into this fun clip.
And in what is my first recollection of Belize making it in a big Hollywood script, Christian Slater’s character Tom, an armoured truck guard in “Hard Rain (1998)” who tries to safeguard a few million dollars from robber Morgan Freeman, tells his nemesis as they battled in the well, hard rain, that if he were the bad guy and took a million dollars, he would escape to Belize. Slater even continues to give audiences a little education about Belize highlighting the two to one ratio of the Belize dollar to the U.S. dollar.
But aside from stretching a dollar for an American bad guy, Hollywood’s fixation with Belize could also be our country’s close proximity to the United States, English being a widely spoken language and our sparse and small population allowing bad guys some time to hide and create new identities or a good guy getting a hit without a hitch. One thing for certain, however, is that Breaking Bad has made Belize part of the American cultural lexicon, and you can be sure we’ll be popping up in more scripts continuing with this season of Ray Donovan.
Stay tuned.
Source: Jolie Pollard
