Carancho

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.

This movie is as perfect as any contemporary movie can be perfect nowadays. The uncompromising plot shows the very somber underside of the insurance business in all its corruption, corruption found in any other big business, as we are getting to know more and more every day just by reading the world news.

They show it really as mafia business.

Corrupt lawyers, corrupt police, corrupt doctors. Everybody and his grandmother is corrupt!! A very dark, very stark movie.

Quite-quite depressing to watch, but so very well done that it grabs you from the very beginning and doesn't let go. Road traffic in the big, polluted city, is the major protagonist, the core of the story, and it is pack and parcel of many outdoor scenes where the interminable string of vehicles running with their noise and pollution are a permanent reminder that every few minutes, inevitably, some accident will occur.

The music is so perfect following the story that just now I realize that there must have been music, because I don't remember any!!

The traffic accident victims, their pain, their waiting for an ambulance lying on the bare cement of the street, maybe with broken bones, in awful pain, any minute of waiting time an atrocious agony, and the ambulance taking forever to arrive..., to me those were intolerable scenes because I was a victim of accidents too and the whole nightmarish thing came back to my mind.

All the hospital scenes were PERFECT.

And the dismal public hospitals, with stained doors (dirt), lack of supplies, lack of doctors and nurses...,and the few available (for too many patients), dead tired without sleep due to so much overwork and underpaid.

No wonder then that they could make horrible mistakes! It couldn't be more depressing. Maybe it's my problem, but I prefer to see a comedy nowadays.

The length of this movie is PERFECT, not a minute too long, not a minute too short. The editing and the camera work just couldn't be better. All the actors sheer perfection too.

Only one question bothers me when it comes to script logic. At the very end, who was driving the white pick up? Because as far as I understood, Darin's character didn't have reliable friends to count on. It's the only flaw that I could notice in the whole movie.

Excellent, a truly excellent film.

CARANCHO ('Vulture' or 'a bird of prey; an animal that attack and feed on wounded animals') is a disturbing film from the opening sequences until the end. Before any story begins we are given the information (superimposed over black and white photographs for broken glass and bodies on a street) about the number of automobile accidents and deaths (in excess of 8,000) each year, the leading cause of deaths in Argentina. This grim fact has produced an even more grim industry - ambulance chasing lawyers who follow and even at times stage accidents in order to collect from insurance and scam the real victims and the insurances companies too. This industry requires the participation of doctors, paramedical personnel and police on the take. Every aspect of this horrendous situation is played out in this tersely written (Alejandro Fadel, Martín Mauregui, Santiago Mitre, and Pablo Trapero who also directs). It is a tough film to watch but does serve to alert the audience to a major crime industry that though set in Buenos Aires, Argentina is prevalent probably throughout the world.

Sosa (Ricardo Darín) is a lawyer who has lost his license form some unstated reason who is now working for a 'foundation' that falls into the category discussed above. He not only chases ambulances but also pays men to stage them so that he can collect money based on the fact that he works with the distraught families to win power of attorney for the injured or deceased, giving him access to the insurance money. His bosses are competitive and Sosa is repeatedly attacked physically a la mob style for his failure to perform. Sosa meets Luján (Martina Gusman), a beautiful young doctor who is at the beginning of her career and must work emergency rooms and ride in ambulances to administer to the injured or ill in order to gain experience to become a respected physician. They meet over an accident - Luján is giving aid to a victim and Sosa is planning to use the victim in his crime racket. Both Sosa and Luján seem to have occult senses of responsibility and ethics but life has brought them to a place where they must submerge their standards in order to survive: Luján happens to be a drug addicted 'to sustain the brutality of her work' and Sosa endangers the lives of innocent people to satisfy the bosses to whom he must bow in order to survive. It is this contrast between their passion for each other and their participation in the dark crime of 'caranchos' that provides the push/pull of their relationship, resulting in an ending few will predict.

Both Darín and Gusman are outstanding in very difficult roles, but the supporting cast - Carlos Weber, José Luis Arias, Fabio Ronzano, Loren Acuña, Gabriel Almirón, and José Manuel Espeche - is equally strong in smaller roles. This is a very dark film - in story, in locale (the San Justo region of Buenos Aires), and in the fact that it all takes place at night - but it carries information we all need to note and molds that information into a suspenseful thriller that is so well paced by director Pablo Tapero that every moment is filled with meaning.

Grady Harp

Knowing Pablo Trapero's previous works, I found myself thinking (three quarters into the movie) "Wow, it seems the guy lost it". Not a bad movie itself, good, strong, structured script, plenty of bad guys who are bad only to make a living but otherwise understand their victims' problems and motivations, but afflicted by some lack of style, narrative rhythm and, last but not least, a very poor acting and voice management by the female lead, Martina Gusman.

Otherwise beautiful,sexy and well planted in front of the contained, every-year-more-Arab-looking Darín, the conflicted, substance-sustained heroine (pun intended) fails to show the downfall of a reputation-seeking doctor, trapped in a war which is not hers, anchored to a love she didn't ask for and, nevertheless, makes part of the cruel disintegration of her world.

The nervous, shaking camera style of Trapero in this flick, adds tension to the tale but fails to remark some important dramatic points. He misses, too, regarding to acting direction, allowing some of the actors —not all, granted— to deploy "methodic" works (in the sense of Actor's Studio ones) which do more damage than good to the development of the plot.

All said, "Carancho" adds nothing to the brilliant Trapero's career, far away from his brilliant "Mundo Grúa" and "El bonaerense". Fairly enough, this one can be considered just one lesser work.

Worth watching? If you like claustrophobic, dark, miserable, sordid crime movie, but with not that good acting and directing, yes. If this isn't the case, look for Adrián Caetano's "Un oso rojo".

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!