Pablo Trapero recounts the story of the Puccio clan, a family in the late 70’s and 80’s in Argentina who led by the father, Arquimedes
, blithely kidnapped and held to ransom in his own house, members of rich families who he would then extort. The hostages were always killed and the family pocketed the money and slowly made their way up in society partly thanks to the talent of son, Alex who was a star rugby player.
Eventually the calm front broke and father and family were arrested. Incredibly this all took place under the nose of the upper middle class society of San Isidro in Buenos Aires. Arquimedes is played to a tee by Guillermo Francella,
in another fine role by him. But it is Peter Lanzani as his son Alex who steps up from TV soaps to really give a good performance here.
Some very nice scenes with constrasting pop music and Trapero creates an atmosphere which is unbelievable but true. It is a satisfying piece of history and of entertainment.
★★★★
Well, Frank turns out to be an exemplary handyman and chef and before you know it he has made it to Adele’s bed and she,
being happier than in years is planning for them all to escape to Canada. Neighbours pop round inconveniently, the police are out searching and Henry is getting a bird’s eye view of the weird way romance works at the same time his own hormones are waking up with the new girl in town.
Somehow, all this rather schmaltzy plot is more believable on the screen as Reitman’s languid direction makes it all seem more plausible. Right down to a peach pie, they all get their hands sticky making.
Kate Winslet is as excellent as ever, a very solid Josh Brolin as Frank 
and Gattlin Griffith acceptable as Henry. Loved Rolfe Kent’s slow moody music. So plenty of gems in an otherwise logically flawed film.
The first half is rather messy
with the building up to the championships and the increasingly hysterical demands of Fischer, both a prima donna and a mad genius. The second half set in Iceland works better with more tension and the showdown between the two greats. 
Not a wonderful movie but Tobey Maguire handles a difficult role well and is well supported by Peter Sarsgard.
Liev Schreiber nails Spassky despite the fact that most of his lines are in Russian.
As the film progresses, we discover that one of them is not as honest as he appears. Patricio Ramos 
and Mario Veron
sustain the film almost alone and the denouement comes as some surprise if not completely. Marcelo Briem Stamm seems an assured director.
The film is quite slow in parts and there are subplots involving the family of one of the boys which never quite get cleared up.
The film is more about mood and the slow transformation from friend to something more. 
Very nice lead performances by Mateus Almada and Mauricio Barcellus
but that is about it really. Typically low-budget indie.
and a sort of magic reality mood about it really doesn’t have much to say. Yes, there is a strong visual component in setting and wardrobe
and the overall message is one of freedom and diversity 
but it is not a story that will stay in the mind. Santiago Giralt is a talented director and he gets good performances from the two main leads Martin Karich and Nicolas Romeo but that’s about it.
Emisor’s electronic music is good but can end up jarring.
Her younger brother resents being her policeman. Father Matthew is a chemist and is very uptight. Sleeps in separate beds from his rather flighty wife who apparently was like Lily when younger. So, the kids go missing and then the film then becomes part thriller, part psychological mystery and part melodrama as Catherine starts going raving mad and having emergency sex all over and Matthew tries to beat people up. 
Rae, the local cop tries to investigate the disappearance and keep a lid on all the small-town revelations. Although there are some quite impacting scenes
, it’s all a bit of a mess and one suspects that the director and writer were trying to combine too much in the one film (small town violence, genre politics, aborigine wisdom, etc. Nicole Kidman is both excellent and unbelievable in a quite histrionic performance and is well matched by Joseph Fiennes who tends to get it right even less of the time.
Hugo Weaving remains a solid and relatively convincing centre although his role peters out. The script is perhaps the worse part and the direction is responsible for over-long scenes at times, some moving and of extreme beauty and others less well done. All a bit of a hotchpotch but the setting is good. My rating is quite generous.
is fine as the frail Max and Dean Norris does a great supporting act as a neo-nazi Zev meets on his way.
Jurgen Prochnow 
and Bruno Ganz, two other staples of German cinema appear to lend their weight. It is an imperfect film with its own lapses in screenplay but Plummer
lifts the whole vehicle up to be a decent afternoon’s viewing.
and being followed and interrogated by the FBI.
This part is heavy handed in the film but does reflect the harassment young Muslim men are suffering in the US. Add to that the fact that these boys are starting a relationship
and you can see that life is not so easy for them. The US security on one side and Muslim homophobia on the other.
and some of the street scenes and the dialogues are really well depicted.
But there are weak points, some poor characterisations, some unlikely situations (the chicken causing an accident) and slack pace. Nonetheless it gives us a slice of US life we don’t often see in the Bed-Stuy area of Brooklyn NY. Look forward to Jay Dockendorf’s next work.
Comes across as all a bit of a mess and unsure of what it is. You get the feeling most of the cast feel the same way. Chiwetel Eljiofor does what he can to give it urgency, Nicole Kidman just sort of stands there 
and Julia Roberts takes the cake by wearing no make-up and breathes a bit of life into her character. 
The translation to 2002 Los Angeles doesn’t convince either.
passionfilm 