O Crime do Padre Amaro

I saw O Crime do Padre Amaro yesterday, and i all i can say is that the movie is very bad. Much of the characters of the movie are only there to fill up the story. There's no density and the characters change personalities without any explanation. It's true the movie is the biggest office box ever made in Portugal but, as someone already said, this is all because of the good publicity. The Portuguese movie industry has good movies, but this is not one of them. It is important that the Portuguese audience goes to see their own movies and maybe that is the only virtue of "O Crime do Padre Amaro". I've read that there will be a TV series made from this movie. I expect that the deleted scenes will explain better some parts of the story. The soundtrack is nice and representative of the music that is made in Portugal.

The script is extremely poor, the acting is lamentable, the soundtrack is annoying. This film is an incredibly poor adaptation of Eca's book, which unsuccessfully tries to transpose it to the 21st century. It simply doesn't work - not because it is not possible to adapt Eca's classic to a modern environment, but simply because nothing in the film works: the twists are predictable, it heavily relies on conventionally-beautiful naked body and simulated sex and on clichés (such as the gay characters, the gangsters). The plots and characters are disjointed. It tries to portray a multicultural modern Portugal, but the attempt is also flawed, leaving the viewer lost.

This is a great movie.. Doesn't matter if you've read the book or not I'm sure you'll love it as I did. The story is about a young priest who fells into temptation with a fabulous woman but there are many other good stories in the movie. The critic to todays decadent Catholic Church is evident and is very well explored. The movie explores also the violence and crime in todays Lisbon surroundings of Chelas. If you've never been to Lisbon this movie will give you a good picture of the dirty side of the 'big' city. The gang action scenes and anti-crime brigade police intervention are pretty good.. it's just like in big Holiwood movies but this happens all the time at around Chelas. This movie has lots of talented actors - the best Portugal has to offer - and besides them there is the Portuguese discovery to cinema: Soraia Chaves. She is simply amazing.. no priest could resist her. Maybe in the future we can see her in a big Hollywood movie.. I'm sure! The soundtrack is very good, it's mostly Portuguese hip-hop featuring some of the best Portuguese bands of the moment like 'Da Weasel','Sam The Kid' and also 'Clã' among others. This is currently the second most seen film in Portugal and soon may be first. To sum up there's nothing to dislike in this movie: a Perfect 10/10 Go watch it!

This is not the best Portuguese movie ever made. And definitely not even a good movie. So what is all the fuss about? First, this was made for Portuguese audiences. It is a Portuguese story, the actors are known faces from television, the music can be heard in the radio. And with the help of a television network, a lot of publicity was made about it. Unfortunately, not for a good cause.

The story runs around the new priest in town, and how he falls into the temptations around him, becoming one of those he thought he would never be. But the adaptation of the 19th century novel does an effort to be "modern" and "cool", adding rap, street gangs, hungry news reporters and mafia-like businesses to the screenplay. And too much naked bodies.

And then unnecessary secondary stories take too much time from the primary action, so prepare for a really fast ending. Maybe that's good, you can go home earlier than you thought!!

I saw this film yesterday on TV. I had just finished reading the book in which the movie was supposedly based. In the opening credits it said "This is a free adaptation of Eça de Queirós' novel". I should have turned off my TV at that moment.

Vera Sacramento's idea of "free adaptation" is turning a story about Church's influence over people and the hypocrisy of people claiming morality at the end of the 19th century into a story about sex. In fact, the only thing she adopted from the novel was the sex part, which was only mildly referred in Eça de Queirós' novel. And, of course, the name of some characters.

As of the characters, in the novel, Amélia and João Eduardo were victims of church's influence. Amélia was seduced by Father Amaro and all the time she was controlled by him. João Eduardo, her fiancé, was excommungated by the priests, because he dared to criticize them. In this movie, Amélia seduces every one she meets and Father Amaro is just another victim. João Eduardo is a dealer of drugs and illegal weapons.

Vera Sacramento has turned a novel which criticized moral costumes of an epoch and turned it into just another movie with lots of (bad) sex. Even worse, her story was completely empty of ideas. Two wasted hours! Eça de Queirós surely did not deserve this.