Meu Tio Matou um Cara

Duca (Darlan Cunha) is a smart teenager that lives in Porto Alegre with his father Laerte (Airton Graça) and his mother Cléia (Dira Paes). His best friends are the also teenagers Isa (Sophia Reis), for whom he has a crush, and Kid (Renan Augusto), for whom Isa has a crush. One night, his uncle Éder (Lázaro Ramos) visits his family and informs that he has just killed the former husband of his girlfriend Soraia (Deborah Secco). Duca finds mistakes in the story told by his uncle, and decides to investigate the tragic event.

Jorge Furtado is certainly one of the best contemporary Brazilian directors and screenplay writers. He is very sensitive to the Brazilian social problems, using many of ours daily and common situations in his well-paced and ironical movies. "Meu Tio Matou Um Cara" is a very funny story, with many jokes. For example, he criticizes the exaggerated concern with racism in Brazilian society in the beginning of the movie; the piracy of CDs, but also the prices of the original CDs - the youngsters prefer to buy four pirates CDs instead of only one original CD, which is an incorrect reality that does exist; he jokes with the efficiency of our police, since a smart teenager is capable to easily resolve a crime and disclose the truth. The cast is wonderful, having very natural performances. For those viewers not familiarized with Jorge Furtado, I highly recommend his delightful romantic-comedy "Houve Uma Vez Dois Verões" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0322629/usercomments-2) and mainly his masterpiece, his dramatic romantic-comedy "O Homem Que Copiava" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367859/usercomments-11). I do not know whether there is international distribution of these excellent movies. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Meu Tio Matou Um Cara" ("My Uncle Killed a Guy")

Another witty, romantic, funny, lightweight teen-oriented film directed and written by Jorge Furtado, combining love triangles, comedy, adventure and social commentary, and featuring his great ear for dialog (he's the smartest comedy writer working in Brazilian cinema today). Here, Furtado once again explores his trade-mark ersatz Cartesian logic construction of the narrative (which he's been developing since his famous, ground-breaking 1989 short "Ilha das Flores"): he makes ordinary stories look fresh by refusing linearity and taking time to consider the "what if" factor; his plots develop in bifurcations, they take side roads. When it seems we're lost in a maze, he throws us Ariadne's thread to a safe exit (his non-corny, unaffected happy-endings) -- but we don't feel fooled, we follow him with a smile.

The cast is firmly lead by teenagers Darlan Cunha (his nonchalant, minimal acting is perfect for the part) and Sophia Reis (lovely without being "cute"), with Deborah Secco looking very sexy and overrated Lázaro Ramos doing what he does best: comedy. There's a lull in the final act, with too many songs commenting the action and plot holes that require a considerable suspension of disbelief, but the pace and editing are so swift and the mood so joyful that by then we're bought. This is Brazilian commercial cinema at its best: sunny, funny, smart, unpretentious, well-made.

Brasil is worldwide famous for soap-operas, and inside the country its a passion. I believe this movie follows a soap-opera style, with a boring story and free semi-nudes scenes from the gorgeous Deborah Secco. I say free cause they got nothing to do with the movie, they are totally out of context. The teen movie approach was not very well announced and I happened to watch it with wrong idea, thinking that it were a movie based on feelings, good script and nice acting, like the Brazilian movie industry is very well based on. It isn't a bad movie, it's just not quite good to theaters...a TV series would be enough. And we're also used to very good movies from Brasil these days, which helped to decrease my feelings for Meu tio matou um Cara.

This film, unlike Furtado's previous feature (The man who copied) is very well paced. It's a teenage flick really, although you might think otherwise because of its title. The crime-mystery element in the plot is only a diversion from the main theme: an underdog story.

There are some really funny lines in it, and it's a good thing the director decided to make it a "real movie", without any miraculous deus ex-machina solutions and unnecessary plot "twists". Hopefully his next film will be even better.

The acting is very good, and at times the situations portrayed bothered me, because they seemed so real. The ending could have been better but it makes you leave the theater satisfied. Good entertainment, but nothing extraordinary.

This movie is very nice-looking and very good-humored. But, being good-humored doesn't suggest it's funny. The only funny parts are the ones we see Renan Gioelli and Ailton Graça; although they don't have any scenes together. So let's see the story: Duca (Darlan Cunha, very sleepy), his father Laerte (Ailton Graça, excellent, but not brilliant), his mother Cleia (Dira Paes, nothing unusual), and his uncle Eder (Lazaro Ramos, not so good and supposedly the "male lead"), are all black. The story begins when Eder enters his brother's apartment (his brother is Laerte) and the first thing he says is "I killed a guy". Then the story introduces us to Duca's best friends: Kid (Renan Gioelli) and Isa (Sophia Reis). Duca secretly loves Isa. Isa secretly loves Kid. Kid doesn't hide from anyone that he loves all girls. During the movie--short movie, it has 80 minutes of picture, plus 5 of credits--we see Duca trying to "seduce" Isa--for lack of a better word--and how Isa and Kid help (or bother) Duce while he tries to solve his uncle's misunderstood story. There are some (weak) surprises as the movie goes and my favorite scene is the last, which is about two minutes long and shot in one shot. 'Course I won't tell what happens in this scene. In the DVD, there is a special feature, that shows the actors improvising their characters as if they were making a testimony for something, but in it they just comment the other characters by their point-of-view. Very funny. Then, there's the production part. The camera is clearly visible twice in the movie (both of them reflected in cars) and the score (not the songs) sometimes doesn't tie with the scene's thematic. But, hey, it's not just bad things. The editing is very precise (check out that scene where we see Éder exiting frame from left as the same Éder is entering frame from right). Art direction is nice. Costumes are very alike normal middle-class Brazilian teenagers. Jorge Furtado's directing is functional. Let's review the acting: Darlan Cunha--just bad; Sophia Reis--shows a lot of talent in her first feature; Renan Gioelli--particularly I think he's the best actor in the film; Ailton Graça--good supporting work; Dira Paes--nothing new; Lazaro Ramos--now, this guy is awful; Deborah Secco--she's as awful as Lazaro Ramos. But, the biggest problem in the film is the screenplay. It just doesn't get us excited.