El desconocido

I only watched this film because I wanted to practise my Spanish and didn't expect to enjoy the flick. In fact, it had sat on my hard drive for nearly a year before I got around to finally watching it. Imagine my surprise and delight when the movie kept me on the edge of my seat for the duration. It is formulaic, to be sure, like most action films, but still has enough twists to keep up the suspense. Plus, the acting is great across the board. So, for those like me who always want more of the same, it hits the spot.

A banker goes to work one day and takes the kids to be dropped off at school but before that can happen, he receives a phone call from someone who tells him he has placed a bomb under the seats of the car and tells him he must arrange a transfer of money to him.

It's the kind of idea that has been seen before whereby someone on the end of a phone is controlling someone else for their gain but from the offset we are sent on a thrilling journey making you wonder why this is happening and making you wonder what you would do in such a situation. The director manages to keep things fairly grounded and so the realism assists in building up the tension. There are a couple of twists thrown in which keeps the pace going.

Good acting from everyone involved in a cast that I am unfamiliar with due to the Spanish production. In the decade of remakes and reboots, this is certainly a film I can see being remade at some point. Provided you do not mind reading subtitles this is certainly worth the viewing time.

If you take LOCKE - starring Tom Hardy spending all the feature length speaking in a cell phone whilst he drives his car - and Joel Schumacher's PHONE BOOTH, starring Colin Farell trapped in a phone booth because of a death threat over his head - not a bomb but a sniper - you will easily get this film topic. OK, that a pretty good suspense, but admit that since a couple of years now, you have many of those topics emerging every where; I mean phone calls involving death threats, or a person asked to kill some folks by unknown killers using a cell phone. A very predictable scheme. When it is not persons buried, locked in a coffin, room, car chest, basement...I guess you will see many more in a near future. Only a not predictable ending can spice those suspense stories. It is also a little "tribute" to the economic crisis; the banker accused to have pushed a woman to suicide because of her lost savings...

A normal day in the life of an bank executive, he wakes up early, answers phone calls related to his work, takes the children to school and notices that the door of the car was already open, but he does not do anything and gets in the car with their two children and is on his way to take them to school and then go to his work at the bank.

Everything goes well until our protagonist (Carlos) receives a call from a cellphone that is not his, he finds it strange but he answers it and on the other side of the line is a stranger who demands a large money transfer to his bank account, if Carlos does not what the unknown person says him will blow up a bomb that's on the inside of the car, and also Carlos will have to make the transfer inside his car because if he gets up of his seat it will activate a bomb inside his seat and will blow up the car as well, leaving him with no possible escape to this problem.

Basically this is the premise of the film, a very intense thriller simply breathtaking and with a unpredictable outcome. One of The best movies from 2015, and with an extraordinary performance by Luis Tosar. My Vote is 8

I recommend it.

Title (Portugal) - "O De$conhecido" ("The Unknown")

An attention grabber and holder that takes place in the Galicia area of Spain, north of Portugal. I think the main actor's portrayal is superior to those of the last two years in the Oscars. He displays a very wide range of emotions sitting in the driver's seat of his car. Never a dull moment.