Carancho

What a bleak and hard hitting intense drama! Wow. It starts out sweet yet depressing, as a love story between two people struggling in low wage high pressure jobs. But slowly this story enfolds itself into a climax that crept under my skin like a disease gone out of control. The nucleus of the story is about a disbarred lawyer who feeds of traffic victims as his clientele. He even goes so far as to help injure people so they can claim insurance money. This criminal business is slowly spiralling out of control. A new found love only intensifies this already chaotic drama. You gotta see this for yourself to believe how insane and wild this story is.

Cant believe this movie has only gotten 17 reviews, mine included. This is THE FORGOTTEN GEM out here! Maybe it is not suited for the masses who might MISTAKENLY expect some sort of fun filled action thriller. It is not. It is depressing. But in a passionate way. Those who love drama in relationships will appreciate this criminal love story. This movie is the real thing: dark, depressing but wild and passionate at the same time. Like only Pablo Trapero and other South American directors of these days can achieve. Lots of masterpieces have originated from those southern countries this past decade. And too few get noticed on Imdb. What a shame.

Seen it many times now and it honestly is one of the most realistic hard hitting dramas I have seen the last decade. Ricardo Darin and Martina Gusman perform the roles of their lives. The photography is like a fly on the wall, documentary style, but not the shaky cam nonsense some other directors use, on the contrary, the natural flowing camera movements gave me the feeling I was right smack in the middle of this enticing out of control story about love and deceit.

Highly recommended for arthouse audiences who have no fear of watching bleak, depressing yet very passionate stories. This is wild stuff! Gotta spread the word around about this forgotten hard hitting gem!

I consider Ricardo Darin is one of the best actors in the world. Period. He has been approached to become a "hollywood star" "a la Banderas and Bardem", but refused to. He is very OK in his native Argentina, and has been in four movies during five years. Trapero is a top-notch scriptwriter and director. Notwithstanding the emotional anxiety or even repulsion that the story itself and some scenes may convey, this is a phenomenal work of art film, cinematography, acting, direction, design and clothing. The romance between these two souls (one, dishonest, the other, weird and low self-esteem)is believable, and adds some suppleness to an otherwise very twisted and somewhat creepy story.

"Carancho" is a bird of prey; an animal that attack and feed on wounded animals. In this movie it's the pseudonym of lawyers that follow (and sometime stage) accidents in order to collect from insurance and scam the real victims (and the insurances companies too).

This kind of activity requires the help of corrupt cops, doctors and lots of low level people. These of course involves crude violence, filmed with taste but shocking none less.

The action was shoot mostly at night in San Justo (within Buenos Aires state), a very depressing location. This setup creates a very dark but absolutely real environment (filmed inside real hospitals and streets ) far from the artificially stylish of "DARK NIGHT". Believe me, what you see is (even when it seems absurd) is the real thing.

Ricardo Darin (from the "Son of the Bride" and the Oscar winner "The Secret in her eyes") as the repented lawyer and Martina Guzman (the director's wife and a real revelation) as a drug addicted doctor give outstanding performances, but the supporting cast quite as good.

Pablo Trapero (the director) was able to orchestrate an almost perfect movie (acting and locations, realistic violence, excellent camera work) with a minimum budget; but failed in the story itself ( which he wrote).

The love story between the two main characters slows down the movie a bit. There are a couple of important situations left unexplained.

In brief; perhaps a little more work on the history could improve this movie but is still far better and effective than 98% of movies currently in theaters.

Violent Argentine movie on a scheme to take money from insurance companies at the expense of the victims themselves. Off course schemers overlap hospitals and law offices when profit is at risk, and things may become quite ruthless. While a romantic drama develops slowly, the film ends in a thrilling brutal scene. Perhaps the most remarkable quality of this good movie is the brilliant camera work. There is also perhaps the best shooting scene I have ever seen in cinema.

After watching this film last night, i can say a couple of things that come to my mind.

• Has a good script, but it's "short" and therefore they make some scenes too long, with a pace too slow, to get a movie with a minimum lenght. It could been 20 min shorter, easily.

• The dark mood of the story is well placed: depressing and dangerous. No complaints here. They make also a good job on showing the daytime differences affecting the characters.

What saves this movie is Ricardo Darin's acting and the last scenes of the movie.