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!

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.

In Buenos Aires, Sosa (Ricardo Darin) is a lawyer that has lost his license and works in a corrupt foundation, chasing in public hospitals and police stations victims of traffic accidents to claim their insurance rights. Dr. Lujan (Martina Gusman) is a young drug-addicted doctor that has come from the provinces and works in an ambulance and in the emergency service of a public hospital. When Sosa meets Lujan, he falls in love for her and tries to recover his license and move to the provinces to star a new life. But he is trapped to the corrupt system and the mafia does not let him go.

"Carancho" is a gloomy romance about the mafia of accident and insurance in Argentina. The story of a man that can not set free from his past and drags a young doctor to the underworld is engaging, but the irony and the dark humor of the conclusion does not work and is very disappointing. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Abutres" ("Voltures")

Dark, gloomy underbelly of Buenos Aires. Dirty, orange lights on even dirtier streets. Drugs, alcohol and the dire consequences. " Carancho" or "The Vulture", takes us to the world we'll rather never know about it. Tragic car crashes, broken glass and pints of blood soaked up by the filthy asphalt. And there are the people, those whose mission is to save and patch up, and those who prey upon the bereft and shocked. There is always money to be made on death and tragedy. Two broken imperfect creatures, desperately clinging to ever so elusive hope for tenderness and human touch. Too much to ask? Perhaps not, but there is nothing fair about this spinning madhouse of a planet we inhabit. Some have it all, and most just roam around hoping and waiting.

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.