El método Tangalanga

In the late 50's in Buenos Aires, Argentina one guy had a friend seriously sick in the hospital and to entertain him and amuse him he started recording phone pranks. In the 80s however was when this recorded pranks really got popular. We all heard about this mysterious pranker, who had an hilarious sense of humor with a very distinctive voice and genius, on the spot, occurrences. In the form of bootleg cassettes that was the first actual phenomenon of anything going viral. Then in the 90's everything got properly recorded in several cd's. Collections of the phone pranks of the infamous Dr. Tangalanga. Hell they even printed book with all of them transcribed!

After all this years this movie comes out, filled with some of the most talented actors in Argentina and sadly misses pretty much all the spots.

No joke ever lands, nobody in the writing department had an ounce of the inventive occurrences of the original prankster.

The lead while being a fine comedy actor couldn't in the slightest imitate the tone the voice and the pace of Doc Tangalanga and what hurts the movie even further is that the actual phone pranks are also played in the movie, and the comparison is merciless.

4 stars all for the good actors give their best but alas with real poor material.

While I wasn't familiar with the original Tangalanga pranks, oddly I didn't feel like the actual phone pranks were so central to the story. I have spent many years in Argentina and know the culture well. Comedy is much harder than drama and yet the Argentines do it so well because sharp edged humor is so deeply engrained in their culture and they have such incredible actors. All of that shines here - superb acting, some great story development and I also loved the set and wardrobe design, which creates a world that was amazingly stylized down to every detail (think Almodóvar or Wes Anderson). Absolutely recommend.