Carancho

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.

In Buenos Aires, Sosa (Ricardo Darin) is a lawyer that has lost his license and works in a corrupt foundation, chasing in public hospitals and police stations victims of traffic accidents to claim their insurance rights. Dr. Lujan (Martina Gusman) is a young drug-addicted doctor that has come from the provinces and works in an ambulance and in the emergency service of a public hospital. When Sosa meets Lujan, he falls in love for her and tries to recover his license and move to the provinces to star a new life. But he is trapped to the corrupt system and the mafia does not let him go.

"Carancho" is a gloomy romance about the mafia of accident and insurance in Argentina. The story of a man that can not set free from his past and drags a young doctor to the underworld is engaging, but the irony and the dark humor of the conclusion does not work and is very disappointing. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Abutres" ("Voltures")

Dark, gloomy underbelly of Buenos Aires. Dirty, orange lights on even dirtier streets. Drugs, alcohol and the dire consequences. " Carancho" or "The Vulture", takes us to the world we'll rather never know about it. Tragic car crashes, broken glass and pints of blood soaked up by the filthy asphalt. And there are the people, those whose mission is to save and patch up, and those who prey upon the bereft and shocked. There is always money to be made on death and tragedy. Two broken imperfect creatures, desperately clinging to ever so elusive hope for tenderness and human touch. Too much to ask? Perhaps not, but there is nothing fair about this spinning madhouse of a planet we inhabit. Some have it all, and most just roam around hoping and waiting.

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".

"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.