Perro come perro

Whoa, whoa!!! Stop the horses... Saying that "Perro Come Perro" is kind of Tarantino's or Ritchie's work might have, it's the biggest lie on earth. I'm from Colombia too, but... sincerely: leave aside the stupid patriotism. I've seen this movie with other titles before... it's nothing new, but it's not bad at all... The only point it's worth to enhance is the direction of Carlos Moreno... it's methodical and creative. The screenplay has a lot of clichés and flaws, the worst one is the Adela situation... that's a popular joke turn into a movie... the violence it's free of charge and I'm not talking about the chainsaw scene... this is not so graphic like the one in Scarface, man... the actors, I don't know... either of them don't bring it out for a nomination of anything. Anyone could have done that parts the same way and nobody sees the difference. The music is good, Superlitio sounds strong and cool in the soundtrack... At the end, with Perro Come Perro, you can go to the movies to hang out and eat some popcorn.

This sun-baked slice of nihilism from Colombia is a very interesting watch indeed. Although there's plenty of yelling and gun-waving, there's also a very ominous feeling about the whole show. Marlon Moreno definitely has presence as the lead, Victor, who must deal with family problems and tries to solve it by stealing money from a dead lackey belonging to his big boss, a snarlingly fun Blas Jaramillo. Holed up in a hotel room with fellow gangster Eusebio (Oscar Borda) Victor waits for the order to find and kill whoever stole the money (himself) and keeps receiving crazy phone calls from a half-mad man looking for a woman named Adela. If this all sounds like fun to you, it is. On top of all that, Eusebio may or may not be "cursed" by a dead man or just going bugnuts crazy. Yes, there's something for everyone here. The only drawback I can think of is it feels a tad too short and a few of the lead characters aren't fleshed out enough to truly care for them when the screws are really put to them. There's plenty of style, however, and you'll being humming the title theme long after it's over.

"Perro come perro", a.k.a. "Dog Eat Dog", has been announced as a groundbreaking feature film in Colombian cinema, mainly for being a participant in Sundance Festival 2008. I even got to read a review saying that it would be the next "Amores Perros" of South America and that it marked a new period for Colombian cinema. As an openminded person who loves cinema, I was very much persuaded of seeing the film for the positive reviews: I definitely expected a whole lot more of what I got to see on the screen. Those propagandistic reviews are the motivation behind this personal commentary.

PCP is seriously flawed in many ways. We may start on the overacting of most of the cast. Now then, if it hadn't been for the superficial way in which the themes were dealt with, the spectators could have empathised with at least something; but there's no space for empathy to happen. On the contrary, the supposed seriousness of the main characters' problems is ludicrous.

The plot in itself is quite straightforward: it's a film based more on atmospheres than on actions. If the movie fails to portray a plausible atmosphere is because of its overdirecting. Without any relevant plot twists and several obvious elements, it tries to appeal in any available form to the audience, even resulting in ridiculous comic relief situations. The soundtrack (original music) and title sequence seem like made for another kind of movie. The 'over the top' post-production (colour correction, editing, sound design) only makes us too aware of the directorial efforts to be innovative. Let's face it: if you're going to do "another" Colombian-violence related-gangster film, try at least not to step on the abundant clichés available for the genre. Instead we get to see a handful of badly used cinematic resources within a weak story.

Besides the flaws aforementioned, what I least liked is its thematic emptiness. There are so many pointless situations!! This is made especially annoying with some exaggerated gratuitous violence scenes. All in all, I never got the point of the film (not the story, which is far too simple). What I mean is that it doesn't really say anything new or interesting about the topic, nor it has a cinematic proposal that would rescue the film from being a commonplace empty gangster-sicario movie, as what it really is.

This is a dirty little Columbian thriller, that has many things going for it. It's mature, it's violent (suits the genre/the story) and it's as gritty and crazy as it can get. In all the positive ways that there are.

The crazy part might put some people off, of course. I won't get into details, but it's pretty out there. But that also makes this movie unique in my eyes. It's not only a simple story, it has these other things going for it. It also is pretty violent and not for the faint hearted. Acted and edited great, the story is confusing at times, but still worth watching, especially if you're fed up with same ol' stories!

This is an accurate while though portrait of crime underworld in Cali (second biggest Colombian city), plenty of a dark sense of humor and local culture elements such as witchery, drug traffic, poverty, and a very interesting atmosphere of salsa and African American music.

It is remarkable the photography direction, specially the coloring and texture of all movie, which emphasizes the feeling of permanent heat (Cali is a tropical place). Oh, and the FX work is very convincing. If you have a lot of gunshots, you will need a lot of fake blood, right? Well, in this film every gun fire sequence is very well played without making you get out of focus of main plot.

Main characters are played in a very convincing way with a very local taste, but in the end of the film you get the feeling of having witnessed events that could happen at the darkest corners of any city in the world.