La hora cero

One thing that annoys me off about Venezuelan cinema is that it invariably falls into either the historical drama or the crime thriller, and too often it fails in both accounts. HERMANO was one exception, and now LA HORA CERO is the other, perhaps the first incursion of my country's cinema into action thriller.

While the occasional clichés are present, this is a well-written adventure full of twists that make sense all the way, and genuinely exciting action sets that was a pleasant surprise to see. The main character is played by an underground hip hop artist who had never acted in his life, but he never ceases to bring the truth, not even next to people who have been acting for at least 12 years. I truly hope you one day get the chance to see this.

The story takes place during a medical strike when doctors hesitated to look at the patients. This film tells the story of a Hit-man, La Parca who is forced to create a hostage situation in a hospital to save his girlfriend. This film reminds me of Denzel's John Q and Hostage situation looks like Dog Day Afternoon. Violence is common in Caracas and during the filming, three crew members were kidnapped. Diego, the director of the film was held up at gun point and a supporting actor was assassinated. Anyway, all this issue helps the movie in a positive way and it breaks all previous Venezuelan box office records. Overall, it's a watchable movie and only recommended to those who can handle violence scenes.

The action, I have seen it, the clichés, the same… the STORY, you get thrown into a movie where you think that you know what is going on and what will happen next, well it's nothing like this! The story evolves in the perfect and non-predictable twists, making the climax of the movie unreasonable at first, but like a well created puzzle, everything falls into place, and believe this, the last fifteen minutes you will want to watch it again and enjoy the cleverness of it! It was a movie I waited months and months to see, and my expectations for this movie were satisfied. If you are thirsty for a good movie you must watch, "La Hora Cero"!

This movie really impressed me. I'm not a fan of violent or "action" movies, and usually, Venezuelan films that deal with violence do it with little subtlety and depth. This is quite an exception. The movie is, over all, credible. The script is full of humour (albeit a very dark one) and, most of the time, quite precise, without excesses, and full of twists and turns. The actors demonstrate something everybody knows: there is a lot of talent in Venezuela, but it is seldom that directors find a way to show it as well as Velasco did. Even though some of the limitations imposed by what one might call the political situation of our country are more or less noticeable, this film finds a way to portrait our reality without romanticism or lies. Aesthetically, the film reaches levels I have seen rarely in our nation's production. It's worth the watch.