4x4

Peter Lanzani (Argentina 1985) stars in this exciting thriller, directed by Mariano Cohn (The Illustrious Citizen), in which he plays a thief who falls into his own trap. A luxury car, an SUV is parked in a neighborhood like many others in Buenos Aires. Ciro, a young thief, goes in to steal, for him it is simply another break-in inside a parked vehicle to get a stereo or any valuable object inside, a simple action with some vandalism, locking something and leaving quickly. Instead, he finds himself trapped inside the car and eventually realizes that there is no way to get out of there. The doors don't respond, neither do the windows, he tries to break them but when he wants to get out he can't, even though he uses all kinds of violent means. The petty thief needs to leave by any means necessary and at that moment he doesn't even care if he will be arrested for it. Then a male voice (Dady Brieva) communicates with him through the radio, that's when reality kicks in. The 4x4 turns out to be like an armored bunker.

This interesting film is about a claustrophobic situation that becomes frustrating, when a petty thief becomes completely locked in a car and the desperation and stress that this causes. The idea is apparently attractive and is concerned with exciting the audience and sometimes leaving the viewer on the edge of their seat, but you can also see the film on a deeper level related to society and how to address security problems in certain areas where Violence and robberies are common, running rampant and while the authorities cannot stop them. The vehicle in this film is a thinly disguised Toyota Fortuner, an SUV based on the popular Toyota Hi-Lux pickup truck. Made in 22 days, the film is based on a real news story that occurred in Brazil about a thief who was trapped in a car while trying to steal it. The key issue beyond the means in which our protagonist tries to escape from the car is how to survive this whole twisted mess. The main issue comes with another aspect that invites some reflection related to what ordinary people do to keep their properties safe. The director throughout the film keeps us trapped with the protagonist inside the car, exploring every inch of it to find a possible exit, slowly suffocating us in the claustrophobic environment from which the film does not emerge for a long time. All of the anxious desperation feels authentic, and even the small changes to his usual appearance worked well to present him as a suburban kid. The film is acceptable but nothing special, because we have already seen these situations of people locked up and using their own limited means on their own several times. This is why we have already seen these twisted incidents in other places, such as in tombs, swimming pools, in a very tall communication tower or telephone booths. In fact, the cult film ¨La Cabina¨ (1972) directed by Antonio Mercero with the great José Luís López Vázquez as the protagonist may be a precedent for this type of plot that has almost become a subgenre. Anyone who wants to revisit this short film can search for it on YouTube, where we can remember it for free. To play Ciro, Lanzani based himself on the claustrophobic performances of Colin Farrell and Ryan Reynolds, in the films "Phone Booth" and "Buried", respectively. The man played in the background is Dady Brieva (who, together with Peter Lanzani and Luis Brandoni as the mediator, are the only three actors involved) explains that after being the victim of many thefts in his numerous cars, he decided to install a powerful system that keeps the man locked up. Intruder with no possibility of escape and no possibility of being seen from the outside.

Co-production between the private Mediapro and Televisión Abierta and public entities: National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA), Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA). What I don't understand is why the production of state entities when the budget is minimal, a simple car, will logically be to receive the respective subsidy. The film was professionally directed by Mariano Cohn, providing many memorable sequences and solid performances. Cohn even gives himself a self-tribute: on the street he sees a poster for an imaginary sequel to The Man Next Door (2009), which Mariano co-directed with co-writer Gastón Duprat. In fact, Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn are regular collaborators, making some very decent films. They have directed a dozen films, with which they obtained more than thirty international awards, among which The Artist (2008), The Neighbor (2009), The Distinguished Citizen (2016), My Masterpiece (2018) and Official Competition (2020). His great success was "The Illustrious Citizen" (2016) that was the No. 1 box office Argentine comedy of the year, earning Argentina's submission for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 89th Academy Awards in 2017 and winning several awards and nominations.

Petty criminal Ciro (Peter Lazani) while walking through a neighborhood in Buenos Aires sees an SUV that catches his interest and breaks into it in order to steal anything valuable. However, Ciro's seemingly easy mark turns into a nightmare as he becomes unable to exit the car once in it and none of the pedestrians can see or hear him as the car is sound proofed with polarized windows nor can he force an escape as the car is fitting with bulletproof glass. As he deals with dehydration, hunger, and isolation, the car's owner Enrique Ferrari (Dady Brieva) revels sadistically in Ciro's suffering.

4x4 is an Argentinian crime thriller directed by Mariano Cohn who co-wrote the film with his producer and collaborator Gastón Duprat. The film is inspired by a news story in which a car thief became trapped inside the car he was trying to steal with Cohn and Dupart crafting a premise from the story that they believed could speak to issues in Argentina involving insecurity and property crimes within the country as well as wealth disparity with the two also soliciting input from people not affiliated with film production in order to craft the film's approach to the discourse of the subject matter while lead actor Peter Lazani studied the performances of Ryan Reynolds and Colin Farrell in Buried and Phone Booth respectively to approach the central performance which would mostly be a one man show. 4X4 is an ambitious film with high concept premise that has a lot on its mind, even if I feel like it stretches itself in order to achieve the ends it seeks.

The movie does a solid job of introducing its contained premise as for the most part the first half-hour or so is mostly silent as Ciro slips into the luxury 4x4 in order to steal its stereo. While the film wears its commentary about wealth disparity and property crimes in Argentina on its sleeve, it is effectively done even if it does make Ciro hard to sympathize with particularly as he attempts to add insult to inury by urinating in the car after stealing the stereo before learning he's trapped in it. Peter Lazani gives a good central performance as Ciro and while he is playing a pretty reprehensible character (down to the fact the movie reveals he has killed people in past crimes) he does add some humanity to the performance that keeps the limited location story engaging. There are some contrivances in the film like Ciro's phone running out of batteries or a lengthy dream sequence in the film that felt like a massive culdesac (it felt like it was trying to emulate the movie 1408, but there was actually a reason for it there that's missing here) and third act feels like it makes the commentary a little too heavy handled in a very public spectacle that culminates in a very rushed epilogue that in theory should be fine but in practice doesn't arrange the pieces in a satisfying whole.

4x4 is certainly a movie that using a limited budget and location for big performances and ideas even if I feel those ideas could've done with a bit more polish. While I did like the film better than Buried (at least by way of not having a nihilistic ending) I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as Phone Booth or 1408. 4x4 is nonetheless a decent small scale thriller that's worth a one time rental provided you're willing to indulge some rough spots and stumbles.

I would've given this movie a 10 because it's original and held my attention. But, the ending just lacked that feeling of satisfaction.

So, in many ways the premise of this film was pretty unrealistic! Some complain it was slow! Given the storyline I hardly expected it to be action packed. Peter Lanzani did a great job carrying the weight of the movie. I watched through the credits and I'm glad I stayed with. Not an Academy Award worthy film, but was enjoyable to watch.

Good execution with clear message, someone did wrong thing impact those victims for sure and bring out social issue in Argentina. We revenge for whom doing wrong things but does it mean our revenge justified ? So many level of thinking after watching this movie.