Papeles en el viento

A beautiful story about friendship, love and soccer passion. Three items Argentinans know for so long. Also, some comedy steps make the spectators laugh, specially if you know the society where the action is in. What could be wrong? Well, the fact that carrying those things to the screen isn't so easy. The three friends that make desperate efforts to recover the bad investment the dead one made, fall in questionable maneuvers which go from the credible to the incredible. The funny steps become overacted, losing freshness, spontaneity. Even so, it's true all the actors (Rago, Peretti, Dopazo, Rabinovich, even Cacho Buenaventura as an emotional father) make an incredible good job, saving the film and making it a not-so-bad one.

This is a beautiful story about friendship and love: love for the family, love for a friend, and most of all, love for a soccer team.

"Papeles en el viento" begins with the death of El Mono (Torres) and develops from there on. His brother (Peretti) and two friends (Echarri and Rago), lifelong friends and fans of Buenos Aires' Independiente soccer team, push back their grief to focus on Guadalupe, El Mono's daughter.

The story often goes back as flashbacks that reveal the three friends relationships with El Mono, and how much they loved each other. The deep love for the dead friend, and for the soccer team is the motor of the story.

It is based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri, who was also behind the screenplay of Juan Jose Campanella's "El secreto de sus ojos" (The Secret in their Eyes).

The movie is about three friends, lifelong fans of the Independiente football team, knowing each other since childhood from the neighborhood: Pablo Echarri today is a hotshot lawyer, Diego Pereti is a high school teacher, Pablo Rago tries to make a living (but usually fails) selling stuff at various stores. A fourth friend, Diego Torres, has died recently of cancer. The friend that died was the owner of the rights to a mediocre football player, playing now in the regional leagues, and the movie is basically about how these three, who have inherited the rights to the player, engage in various schemes to try to sell this player to top football teams far above its real price. The schemes they engage are quite dishonest (for example, we see them making a fake video of the player, stealing a car, bribing a journalist to hype the player) but we are asked to find their dishonesty lovable, since it's all done not to enrich themselves but to help the daughter of their late friend. While the movie is well acted and directed and holds our interest, its mixture of saccharine sentimentality with its praise of dishonesty leave us with a bad taste. Based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri, who also co-wrote the script. Directed by Juan Taratuto.