El Jockey

Kill the Jockey (2025 USA Release) - Luis Ortega

Kill the Jockey is not what I was expecting at all from a film with that title. I went in blind, only having looked at its decent critic score on the website MetaCritic. Since I knew it was an independent foreign film, I did assume that it had the potential to be a more artful film than most movies I go to see in the theaters.

It is definitely an artful film. But is that a good thing, or a bad thing? On my first viewing of Kill the Jockey, it is tough to answer that question.

The first half of the movie is relatively normal, and funny at times, and it explains the title of the film quite easily. Meet Remo, an alcoholic and drug-addicted jockey who can only race well when he is hammered (kind of like that Family Guy episode when Peter is a genius pianist while drunk). Because Remo gets hammered or stoned so much, one time it causes him to not even start a race properly, and "bosses" get mad and try to lock him and his sort-of-girlfriend up in a small shack to force him to sober up before his next race. They need him to win, and if he does not, they threaten to kill him.

With the themes that Kill the Jockey tries to address, I will say that it is an ambitious movie which challenges its audience to determine hidden meaning. About halfway through the film, it shifts focus from a mafia group trying to control Remo to a very in-your-face transgender allegory in which Remo is reborn after an accident on the track into a feminine version of himself (and I forget her new name).

The movie started to lose me about three quarters of the way through. Characters who knew the titular jockey as Remo in the beginning suddenly start calling the now-woman by her new name as if they always knew her that way. The movie loses its cohesiveness and its logic, although maybe the hidden meaning behind the overarching plot is really there, and it is just tough for me to connect the dots? Maybe that is just surrealist cinema for you, who knows?

I am not sure whether this is just the surrealism of the second half of the movie as well, but there are several times late in the movie where it attempts to be comedic, but falls very short in most of these attempts.

The concept is good in theory, I feel. With the ambition this movie has with its transgender allegory, it seems like it falls in the same light as some of Almodovar's movies, but just not fully fleshed out or made with the same careful direction as his movies. Maybe a second viewing would allow me to see what I was missing, but I think I will pass as this movie was mostly uninteresting.

5/10.

Remo Manfredini (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) is a talented horse rider past his prime who struggles with addiction and has to win races for his employer, Sirena (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a gangster determined to get Remo sober so he can win again.

Directed by Luis Ortega and co-written with Fabian Casas and Rodolfo Palacios, El jockey is a surreal and absurdist film that could be divided into two parts, the first one where we are in the realm of the real and the second one where surreality takes over and every sense and logic is left behind.

There is a constant search for peculiarities that sometimes can border on kitsch. For instance, people that strike the eye for their appearance, doppelgangers, close-ups of horses' privates that remind us of Walerian Borowczyk, a character always carrying a baby, people dancing at random. Elements that aim at furthering the absurdist ethos of Ortega's feature.

What ails the movie is that behind all the conceptuality and surreal elements, there is never a purpose other than to enhance its whimsical nature. One could draw symmetries with "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf or with "La mala educación" by Pedro Almodóvar, where its protagonists change gender, but they are like loose structures trying to find meaning in a shapeless figure instead of a cohesive whole with meaning. Even Luis Ortega acknowledged in an interview with Urbana Play to not understand his own movie.

What the movie also shares in terms of Almodóvarian elements is a rich color palette, and this has to be one of the strongest aspects, along with the music, that render many sequences like music videos where time is still by reason of how good image and sound go together. Other than that, there is not much to see in El jockey.

Remo is a former star in the horse racing circuit, now struggling with numerous addictions including frequent cocktails of horse drugs and whisky. His mobster boss, Sirena, only has so much patience with Remo drinking from the River Oblivion. When Sirena buys a Japanese racehorse for a million dollars, he bets hard on Remo and insists that he get his act together. Sirena has doubts about Remo's commitment to excellence. "Introspective is not working," he says "we have to go back to violence."

Kill the Jockey is a fun, offbeat, and sexy thriller with an improvised dance sequence that is stirring and emblematic of the entire film's themes of rebirth and letting go. I loved the exhilarating lounge music. Director Luis Ortega was gregarious and jazzed at this North American premiere screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. "Don't hang onto anything," he said. "If you feel lost that's fine, and this is what the film is about." Ortega tried hard in the film to connect with the vibe of Buenos Aires. Interesting walks in the city helped him succeed in this. "You meet people, see things, and risk getting stabbed," he said "but these are strolls you have to take."

I didn't know what to expect from this uncharted concept, but the blackly funny poster art and USA renaming of this probable comedy (nice) sure as hell got me in the movie theater door. And El Jockey was a surreal gem of a film. I expected more sports and crime but hardly lamented their short supply, in this deadpan parable of the human brain and society. This was an absurdist Lynchian comedy, but, that is undermining its contemporary disco pulse heartbeat: it reminded me, indeed, of the most likable qualities of a gritty, noirish David Lynch flick from a bygone generation. But I thought El Jockey was ultimately funny, more conceptually singular, and less obsessed with graphic sex and violence than any of my favorite Lynch flicks. A classic.

A movie good enough to be Argentine, since it's not something that uses to happen.

Luis Ortega's El Jockey is a surreal and provocative dive into identity, addiction, and self-destruction. Starring Nahuel Pérez Biscayart as Remo, a washed-up jockey spiraling into chaos, the film blends gritty realism with moments of absurdity. His toxic relationship with Abril (Úrsula Corberó) adds depth to a story that constantly defies expectations.

With striking cinematography by Timo Salminen and a bold narrative structure, El Jockey challenges conventional storytelling. Pérez Biscayart delivers a raw, intense performance, making this a gripping exploration of reinvention and self-destruction. A daring and unforgettable cinematic experience.