Carancho

Violent Argentine movie on a scheme to take money from insurance companies at the expense of the victims themselves. Off course schemers overlap hospitals and law offices when profit is at risk, and things may become quite ruthless. While a romantic drama develops slowly, the film ends in a thrilling brutal scene. Perhaps the most remarkable quality of this good movie is the brilliant camera work. There is also perhaps the best shooting scene I have ever seen in cinema.

In Buenos Aires, Sosa (Ricardo Darin) is a lawyer that has lost his license and works in a corrupt foundation, chasing in public hospitals and police stations victims of traffic accidents to claim their insurance rights. Dr. Lujan (Martina Gusman) is a young drug-addicted doctor that has come from the provinces and works in an ambulance and in the emergency service of a public hospital. When Sosa meets Lujan, he falls in love for her and tries to recover his license and move to the provinces to star a new life. But he is trapped to the corrupt system and the mafia does not let him go.

"Carancho" is a gloomy romance about the mafia of accident and insurance in Argentina. The story of a man that can not set free from his past and drags a young doctor to the underworld is engaging, but the irony and the dark humor of the conclusion does not work and is very disappointing. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Abutres" ("Voltures")

"Carancho" is a bird of prey; an animal that attack and feed on wounded animals. In this movie it's the pseudonym of lawyers that follow (and sometime stage) accidents in order to collect from insurance and scam the real victims (and the insurances companies too).

This kind of activity requires the help of corrupt cops, doctors and lots of low level people. These of course involves crude violence, filmed with taste but shocking none less.

The action was shoot mostly at night in San Justo (within Buenos Aires state), a very depressing location. This setup creates a very dark but absolutely real environment (filmed inside real hospitals and streets ) far from the artificially stylish of "DARK NIGHT". Believe me, what you see is (even when it seems absurd) is the real thing.

Ricardo Darin (from the "Son of the Bride" and the Oscar winner "The Secret in her eyes") as the repented lawyer and Martina Guzman (the director's wife and a real revelation) as a drug addicted doctor give outstanding performances, but the supporting cast quite as good.

Pablo Trapero (the director) was able to orchestrate an almost perfect movie (acting and locations, realistic violence, excellent camera work) with a minimum budget; but failed in the story itself ( which he wrote).

The love story between the two main characters slows down the movie a bit. There are a couple of important situations left unexplained.

In brief; perhaps a little more work on the history could improve this movie but is still far better and effective than 98% of movies currently in theaters.

I consider Ricardo Darin is one of the best actors in the world. Period. He has been approached to become a "hollywood star" "a la Banderas and Bardem", but refused to. He is very OK in his native Argentina, and has been in four movies during five years. Trapero is a top-notch scriptwriter and director. Notwithstanding the emotional anxiety or even repulsion that the story itself and some scenes may convey, this is a phenomenal work of art film, cinematography, acting, direction, design and clothing. The romance between these two souls (one, dishonest, the other, weird and low self-esteem)is believable, and adds some suppleness to an otherwise very twisted and somewhat creepy story.

After watching this film last night, i can say a couple of things that come to my mind.

• Has a good script, but it's "short" and therefore they make some scenes too long, with a pace too slow, to get a movie with a minimum lenght. It could been 20 min shorter, easily.

• The dark mood of the story is well placed: depressing and dangerous. No complaints here. They make also a good job on showing the daytime differences affecting the characters.

What saves this movie is Ricardo Darin's acting and the last scenes of the movie.