Concursante

I found this movie by fortuitous accident and consider it one of the best I've ever seen. At times funny, at others depressing, it will forever change the way you feel about consumerism and banks. It chronicles the drastic change in a man's life after winning the highest paid contest on TV and how his immense good fortune became a real-life nightmare as his prize money fails to materialize and he is coerced to borrow against it. A brilliant way to teach about the real perils of borrowing, how compound interest works and how to avoid falling in the trap. I dare are you to watch a constructive, powerful and unforgettable movie today!

A normal guy ruins his life because a stroke of good luck. Will the director die for the same reason? I don't think so, for he shows much more than simple luck on the guiding of this extraordinary film about the truth and the appearance of truth, abut the luck and the evil of the banks, about the fast and the cinema itself. Rodrigo Cortes directs his first film with master hand, it's difficult to believe this is his first feature. I haven't seen his short films, but I'll try to, since the joy and good time this movie has given to me. Impactant editing, masterful script, extraordinary music, amazing directing, unbelievable acting (and can an actor be more handsome??)... At first I thought this film was going to be a pedant bluff, but at the minute 20 I couldn't stop watching at the screen, almost hypnotized. I'll never trust a bank again!!

I've seen this film in the Spanish Cinema Malaga Festival, and I consider it excellent. The audience also finded it moving and different, and all of us clapped spontaneously at the end of it, the whole theater decided to stand up as if we were one only person. "Concursante" also has a great performance by Leonardo Sbaraglia, an excellent actor from Argentina, his acting is spectacular, brilliant, and the same for the rest of the cast, very inspired and very well directed. It won the Critics Award (and Best Cinematography), but it deserved many more, that was the general feeling in Málaga. Excellent movie that may also work abroad, because of its international look and interesting theme (the truth of the Financial System). Ten points for "Concursante", Leonardo Sbaraglia and its young and promising director, Rodrigo Cortés.

And that's because it subtly educates the viewer on the abject fraud of the Ponzi financial and monetary system, which many imo still do not understand. _Money as Debt_ and _The Moneymasters_ are two other (non-fiction) titles worth viewing for further background.

This movie's timing could not have been better, given the global financial system meltdown currently underway, as a result of yet another Ponzi scam, to wit, the astronomical heap of worthless over-the-counter derivatives piled on top of garbage debt-backed paper of all sorts (securitized mortgage loans, auto loans, credit card debt, etc.).

I think the script wastes a bit of time at the beginning with details about the main character that aren't really relevant to the story, and over the course of the last 10-15 minutes when building up toward a denouement which I would've preferred had been different. Nevertheless, I'd give it a 100 points if I could, for the way it masterfully weaves a subject that most people don't want hear about because it bores them, into an extremely entertaining fictional story brimming with a plethora of unique, charismatic and hilarious characters. Even the most despicable character radiates uproarious charm.

Contestant is a sleek independent Spanish film-noir comedy with an intriguing and original plot that will keep you at the edge of your seat.

It tells the story of a couple of yuppies, Martin and Laura, who become multimillionaires after Martin -played by Leonardo Sbaraglia- wins a 30 million Euros in a TV show. The prize, however, becomes a curse.

The film is clever, thought provoking, very dynamic, and, above all, pure entertainment. It has brilliant dialogs; truly fantastic are those devoted to economics, which are explained in such a creative simple way that the lay person can easily understand. The film has a great tempo and frantic action. However, the film contains a satire of consumerism and capitalist society and its mechanisms to entrap the individual, but presented lightly.

Although all the actors are correct in their respective roles, Sbaraglia really shines, and he's impeccable in his his performance; the noir genre really suits his acting. Also great is Chete Lera as the old subversive retired professor Edmundo.

The direction is great, especially if you take into account that his was Rodrigo Cortes's first long-footage movie.

This is one of my favorite Spanish movies of the 2000s. A must see. Truly entertaining and intriguing.

Rodrigo Cortes is one of the best young talents in Spanish cinema and you are going to hear a lot from him from now on.