Semana Santa

"Semana Santa" or "Angel Of Death" is a very weak movie. Mira Sorvino plays a detective who is trying to find a killer who shoots arrows in people. Mira has an Italian accent which falters from time to time. Couldn't she just speak English? All the other characters have a forced Mexican\English accent which is distracting. The dialogue is very bad and the delivery of it is wooden. The cinematography looks nice, but that's not enough to save this tripe. THIS NEXT PART OF THIS REVIEW DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!

During the climax it looks like the villain is going to get away, but then he comes back down stairs to get shot and do a cool stunt down the railing. That just shows this script has no originality whatsoever. AVOID!

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Police detective Maria Delgado (Mira Sorvino) is transferring from first rate Madrid to the second tier Seville for unknown reason. Captain Rodriguez sends detectives, Quemada (Olivier Martinez) and Torillo, to help her acclimatize. It is the Semana Santa (original title) and the processions create traffic jams. Someone in a red hooded costume from the Brotherhood of Christ is attacking people. Two decomposing bodies are found in carefully posed positions. The police trio investigates. It soon leads to the Brotherhood and the dark Spanish recent history.

First, it's strange to watch Mira Sorvino's dubbing. It doesn't help that her acting is so flat in this movie. It looks like those old kung fu movies. This is a police drama thriller. The first half is fine although they could use a couple of red herrings. Around the midpoint, the movie runs out of steam. The old lady is doing a lot of expositions to move the story along. She does it a couple of times. They lose Torillo which is a shame. I like the chemistry of the trio. When they boil the group down to the two hot actors, the serious feel starts slipping away.

I'm shocked by all the negative reviews I've read on Angel of Death now that I've seen it. My rating of a 6/10 almost makes me look like a fanboy in comparison with what most people seem to think about Angel of Death. It may not be the best movie ever made, but it's certainly better than the garbage others seem to be labeling it. Take the criticisms I've seen leveled against Mira Sorvino. The charge - Sorvino sleepwalks through her performance. What these people call sleepwalking I tend to view as a nice, understated performance that works for me. It's like the old adage - one man's trash is another man's treasure.

The plot centers on a series of brutal murders being committed during the Spanish Holy Week celebrations in Seville by a red-hooded monk. Through their investigations, Sorvino and her compatriots discover a back-story of rape and greed dating back to the time of the Spanish Civil War. Sorvino must find the killer before she becomes the latest victims. This plot is, perhaps, the movies weakest point. It's interesting enough, but it's far too involved to completely explore in a roughly 90 minute movie. There are a few subplots that go nowhere and much is left to the viewer to figure out.

In many respects, Angel of Death seems to be an attempt to revive or at least revisit the European or Giallo thrillers of the past. A black-gloved hooded killer, a convoluted plot, beautiful cinematography, and violent death scenes all hearken to the glory days of the Euro-thriller. It's a shame this movie wasn't more well received because I would have enjoyed seeing more of this kind of film.

I could not, for the life of me, follow, figure out or understand the story. As the plot advances it too stays incomprehensible. I'm going to guess and say that there was a preproduction story/plot problem that never got sorted out. The producers could never separate the many details that the novel, or any novel, has the time and space to create from the other idea, which was to make a movie about a serial killer and the killer's pursuit by the police. They ended up with too many things happening in a proscribed feature film time limit. Too bad really because they had a solid cast, a director who knows how to move things around and excellent cinematography. In fact, a well made movie that one could enjoy and relax with for a couple of hours.

In Seville, the newcomer detective Maria Delgado (Mira Sorvino) arrives during the Holy Week and is assigned to work with detectives Quemada (Olivier Martinez) and Torillo (Féodor Atkine) in the bizarre murder of twins, killed with several bullfighter knives. Maria interviews the old lady Ms. Catalina (Alida Valli), who found the bodies, while a tourist is attacked on the streets by a masked guy with a bullfighter knife. The trio connects the cases and follows the lead to a brotherhood. The director of the brotherhood is also killed by a knife, and Maria follows her instinct and visits Ms. Catalina again in a convent. Ms. Catalina discloses her sad adolescence when Spain was in Civil War and Maria gets closer to the truth.

When I saw the names of Mira Sorvino and Alida Valli, I did not hesitate and bought this DVD. The story has a promising beginning, with a weird death and decomposed corpses that recalled me "Seven", and I was expecting a good dark movie. Unfortunately, director Pepe Danquart did not take any care in developing the characters, and his only concern seems to be a tourist travel through the beautiful Seville in the "Semana Santa". Therefore, the motives of each character are very confused, leading the movie to a terrible conclusion. Mira Sorvino seems to be upset most of the time, and the DVD distributed in Brazil is awfully dubbed in English. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Anjo da Morte" ("Angel of the Death")