Os Imortais

"Os Imortais" is without a doubt one of the best, or probably, the best Portuguese film ever made. It certainly is a landmark on the Portuguese cinema's scene; this movie his worth every minute.

Every year, four ex-soldiers that call themselves "Os Imortais" (translated "The Immortals"), get together with four women to celebrate war deeds and to remember the old days, back in the war. On the summer of 1985, tired of their monotonous lives they decide to rob a bank. Joaquim Malarranha, a chief inspector from the local police about to retire, crosses their path and will spend his last days of duty trying to solve the robbery. But has he carries on with his investigation, he discovers more than he could ever think of.

A movie that focuses on strange and disturbing actions of ex-soldiers on their attempt to fit in the modern society and to mend errors committed in the past, and on a veteran cop who's about to leave his working-life behind.

João Pedro de Vasconcelos managed to assemble a cast with vast qualities; it's a pleasure to watch Nicolau Breyner's performance. The story is very solid and can really catch the viewer's attention; it keeps the anxiety of knowing what really happened during the robbery and the days that followed it.

"A bandit always forgets that there is, at least, another bandit smarter than him."

Normally when you see a movie of which you had read the book you get disappointed, because the movie cannot contain everything that the book has, although in this case that doesn't happen cause the movie is not just an attempt of put into a movie the story of the book, it really is more than just that, if you read the book you'll see that there are many many different changes from the story of the book to the movie, its almost like you've read a book that contains the same characters but in a somehow different story, so that's the first reason why I think this is a really good movie, but there are others, like the great screen play, the really good cast and others, although I think that the adaptation of the story is really good.

With a big, big cast, full of famous portuguese actors, Vasconcelos goes back to the crime and shows us a country in the mid 80's, ready to begin looking forward but still too much attached to its memories of war in Africa. 5 bad men from the army return to Portugal, but they're not yet ready to fit he social scheme, and so start to get involved with drug dealing, arms, and a lot of bruises to women. One inspector, at the end of his career, will be the only one to get close to the truth... but will he get there in time? A movie that brilliantly uses a past of TV images to tell parts of the story and a movie that reflects the cinema in Portugal, placing the past each time more in the past.

"Os Imortais" is indeed a very competently made heist movie that brings together a consistent cast and a captivating story. It deals with the inability of war veterans to resume their old life after they've been trained to discard their emotions and act like killing machines only to be later unable to readapt to their old life. Crime becomes the only thing they can be good at and they reconvene their old group for a robbery. Sadly, despite some very effective scenes near the end, this human aspects take a back seat to the investigational thriller it mostly is. The casting managed to fit in the same movie a wide array of well known Portuguese (and not only since Polanski's wife Emanuelle Seigner also stars) actors and TV personalities ranging from the extremely successful Joaquim de Almeida and Nicolau Breyner to up and coming young comedians like Maria Rueff, Carla Salgueiro and Rui Unas playing against character. Certainly worth a view or two.

I love the movies by the Cohen, and this great portuguese movie just reminded me of them. Why? You know that amazing feature of the Cohen's movies... to pick up or write a story, create a "carpet" (not Dude's one...!) and then put all sort of characters in it, each one unique, each one amazing... In "Os Imortais" that also happens and it's great how all those unique characters deal with each other. Very nice movie, indeed.