Chica de Río

This was one of the lamest movies we watched in the last few months with a predictable plot line and pretty bad acting (mainly from the supporting characters). The interview with Hugh Laurie on the DVD was actually more rewarding than the film itself...

Hugh Laurie obviously put a lot of effort into learning how to dance the Samba but the scope of his character only required that he immerse himself at the kiddie end of the pool. The movie is based on the appearance of a lovely girl and great music but these are not sufficient to make good entertainment.

If you have never seen Rio, or the inside of a British bank, this film is for you. 2 out of 10.

It's hard for me not to like a movie that: A) takes place in an exotic tropical country B) has the protagonist sleeping with his dream girl after knowing her an hour, and C) has a happy ending. These qualities nearly compensate for the weaknesses of The Girl From Rio.

The plot of this Hollywood Film Festival winner is pedestrian and slack. You gotta like this Raymond guy, though.

Raymond (Hugh Laurie) is a bank clerk with a thoroughly unlikable boss, a cuckolding wife, and an endearing passion for Salsa dancing. Laurie's is the film's only real nuanced performance. No matter what he's saying or doing, his eyes betray him. His ubiquitous fear that the world is a dangerous and scary place has become his reality. It's clear, however, that beneath his pitifully polite and feckless British demeanor is a simmering frustration. Whatever you do, don't confuse Salsa with Bossa Nova. That makes Raymond really angry.

Raymond quietly endures his mostly comfortable life until, quite suddenly, the machinations of his wife and boss render him alone and disconsolate. A coworker commiserates, `It could be worse,' and Rodney does his best to prove his friend right by filling a duffle bag with all the bank's cash on Christmas Eve and hopping a flight to Rio de Janeiro.

Enter The Girl. `S' words come to mind. Sultry. Sensual. Sizzling. Steamy. Vanessa Nunes's Orlinda is a famous Brazilian Samba dancer whose mere picture fuels Raymond's first-class flight from sanity. Then it's this pesky plot stuff again. Paulo, the taxi driver (Raymond's seedy, hapless Sancho Panza) just happens to know Orlinda. They meet, they dance down a Brazilian calle accompanied by a thousand musicians and acolytes, they go to his room, they make love. As much as I was rooting for old Raymond, I felt vaguely ripped off.

Not nearly as ripped off as Raymond, however.

Everyone in this film has a secret. Raymond. Olinda. (`You're just a thief like me,' she tells him.) His boss. His wife. Paulo. Even the painfully anachronistic villain.

As I mentioned, everything turns out just fine. Even the obscene economic disparity of Rio (better portrayed in 1999's Orfeu) is corrected in authentic Robin Hood fashion.

Did I mention the villain? They made him carry a little dog.

Literally a rating for a good story and it is true that Hugh Laurie's Raymond carried the movie. Without his talent and comedic additives this movie wouldn't have a cat's chance in hell of success.

The ending is brilliant and unpredictable. The English dialog amongst the non-English characters is ridiculous and typically bad. Last and least, I'll be happy never to see Santiago Segura in anything else ever again. He's fat, sloppy, ugly and how he ever landed a roll in any film (other than snuff) is beyond me.

The title makes no sense only because the movie has little to do with the girl... who happens to be from Rio. As my summary suggests something as corny as A British Samba would have actually worked considering what the movie is about.

This was actually a great "bad" movie. Definitely my style.

Although not technically perfect or with the most amazing 3D effects, actually no effects at all, the film can entangle you in a eerie feeling. I just finished watching it and I am feeling it. The sense of unachievable goals, of beautiful girls, excellent beaches and love through pictures firstly and then at first sight can make you feel awkward.

The story is simple and the plot is naive. Nothing of these would have happened in real life. But, because there is always a but, the film has it's own way into making you mix in the plot. Feel a part of it. Who has not felt betrayed, self-pitted, deserted or just confined in his everyday prison of routine? Who wouldn't like to travel to exotic places and meet beautiful girls of his dreams if he had the chance? Who isn't bullied by other people everyday even if those people are your boos, your landlord, your parents, your wife?

The film tries to make a statement. Simple and clear. The statement is based on everyone's life. So don't ask what I have understood because it, possibly, is different from what you have understood. I matched for some things even with Paulo, the taxi-driver, the penny "thief", the man-for-all-businesses. Watch the film carefully and you will observe that you have similarities with every character in this film.

...in a you-always-know-exactly-what's-going-to-happen kind of way. Girl From Rio is hardly going to have you glued to the screen, or really make you think in any kind of way, but it makes for a pleasant couple of hours all the same, spattered through with a few decent laughs and the delightful Vanessa Nunes (or, to be more exact, Nunes' delightful backside).

Most of the movie's charm is, unsurprisingly, attributable to Laurie's performance; while hardly stretched (Raymond is the sort of character he can probably play in his sleep by now) he nonetheless remains both sympathetic and genuinely likable throughout. So much so, in fact, that you can forgive the quite remarkable implausibility of the whole thing, along with some absolutely horrendous support turns, a lazy script, pedestrian direction and some ridiculous soundtrack choices (such as when Raymond finally gets to dance with Orlinda and the samba beat bizarrely fades into a fromage-encrusted swell of strings). Indeed, that a movie so intrinsically flawed and worthless can be made perfectly enjoyable is a sturdy testament to Laurie's charisma.

Well, that and Nunes' arse...