Abutres

"Carancho" is a bird of prey; an animal that attack and feed on wounded animals. In this movie it's the pseudonym of lawyers that follow (and sometime stage) accidents in order to collect from insurance and scam the real victims (and the insurances companies too).

This kind of activity requires the help of corrupt cops, doctors and lots of low level people. These of course involves crude violence, filmed with taste but shocking none less.

The action was shoot mostly at night in San Justo (within Buenos Aires state), a very depressing location. This setup creates a very dark but absolutely real environment (filmed inside real hospitals and streets ) far from the artificially stylish of "DARK NIGHT". Believe me, what you see is (even when it seems absurd) is the real thing.

Ricardo Darin (from the "Son of the Bride" and the Oscar winner "The Secret in her eyes") as the repented lawyer and Martina Guzman (the director's wife and a real revelation) as a drug addicted doctor give outstanding performances, but the supporting cast quite as good.

Pablo Trapero (the director) was able to orchestrate an almost perfect movie (acting and locations, realistic violence, excellent camera work) with a minimum budget; but failed in the story itself ( which he wrote).

The love story between the two main characters slows down the movie a bit. There are a couple of important situations left unexplained.

In brief; perhaps a little more work on the history could improve this movie but is still far better and effective than 98% of movies currently in theaters.

After watching this film last night, i can say a couple of things that come to my mind.

• Has a good script, but it's "short" and therefore they make some scenes too long, with a pace too slow, to get a movie with a minimum lenght. It could been 20 min shorter, easily.

• The dark mood of the story is well placed: depressing and dangerous. No complaints here. They make also a good job on showing the daytime differences affecting the characters.

What saves this movie is Ricardo Darin's acting and the last scenes of the movie.

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".

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.