El ángel

Fotografía, dirección, música, actuaciones, personajes. Altamente recomendable

Watched this last night - absolutely stunningly directed, filmed and terrific acting, I found. Struggled a bit with the Argentinian Spanish and was very thankful for the English subtitles. :)

I'd love to hear from the people who are responsible for the comparatively poor rating (if I give it 10 and it sits on 6.8 there must be a few fairly poor votes) what they didn't like about it.

First of all, the film is very good if we talk about filmmaking. It is slow, and somehow this Works against. The acting is amazing, every actor is wonderfull. But come on...we know who this serial killer was, in this film he is too humorous and funny....couldn't accept this aspect of the film.

"El Angel" is a consistently watchable crime thriller/case study of the real-life Argentine serial killer Carlos Puch. It is set in the seventies and feels eminently authentic. Its soundtrack, of Spanish rock songs, is also fantastic.

In this film, Puch is a habitual thief who seems incapable of remorse, or even perhaps any other emotion. He has a baby face and a head of curls and seems wide eyed and innocent. He walks through other people's homes as though they are his own; if anything, he seems more at ease there than in his own home.

A friendship leads to a local criminal who provides him with guns, and soon Carlos isn't just robbing people. He kills like a true psychopath with no emotion whatsoever, nor does he hesitate or even think about what he is doing.

His shootings seem to happen out of his control, especially in one scene that seems quite unrealistic. Carlos is apparently a crack shot the first time he has to handle a gun.

The movie includes a repulsive and unexpected shot of an old man's wrinkled, hairy scrotum hanging out of his boxer shorts. Repulsive.

Other than that, "El Angel" is a good movie. I say check it out.

...which annoyed me, because the production, cinematography and direction are amazing. Ferro didn't feel natural speaking, apparently everyone thinks he's pretty and provably that's attractive in an actor and main role (even if he doesn't look much like the real life Carlos Puch), but his lines felt very forced and sounded very unnatural, it's more noticeable if you understand the original language and Argentinian accent. I understand Carlos Puch is an absolute psychopath (excuse me if it's not the exact technical medical definition of what he is, but you get what I mean) and being inexpressive and lack of emotion in extreme situations could be part of his personality, but when Ferro is trying to act "normal" and talking to family or friends he looks and sounds very unconvincing. Still, besides this few scenes when I didn't like Ferro's performance, the movie is very well produced and I did enjoy it very much. There's also the fact that a couple of his worst crimes were left untold in the movie, which is weird, as they would have added a lot of weight and define better how bizarre and sinister Carlos is. Still, good movie, but because of (in my opinion, of course) the main role's bad casting, I have to lower my score quite a bit.