LA CUCARACHA (1998) is an original, intelligent dark-comedy that sneaks up on you and gets under your skin. It was the winner in many of the film festivals of 1998. Eric Roberts gives the performance of his life as a snivelling, weak, drunken coward that finds redemption; a part that should have broken him out of his B-movie status, if not for the industry fumbling in the movie's distribution.
It is a moral play, delineating the human ability to rise above our animal instincts. It begins, as most Great Films do, with a tone and pace that could take the story in any direction, and once its tone of "dark comedy" is set, it remains consistent throughout. Instead of leaping into an easily recognizable formula, it takes its time to set up the character of our protagonist (all of the characters in this film are written, portrayed and presented so well, one wonders if it weren't written fifty years ago, when dialogue in a film actually mattered).
There is horror and tragedy within the story, but it is never gratuitous nor glorified.
If you love great dialogue; if you love great character development and motivation; if you love great direction and timing; if you long for the days when there were actually good, solid, meaningful stories; do yourself a favor and FIND THIS MOVIE.
It is a moral play, delineating the human ability to rise above our animal instincts. It begins, as most Great Films do, with a tone and pace that could take the story in any direction, and once its tone of "dark comedy" is set, it remains consistent throughout. Instead of leaping into an easily recognizable formula, it takes its time to set up the character of our protagonist (all of the characters in this film are written, portrayed and presented so well, one wonders if it weren't written fifty years ago, when dialogue in a film actually mattered).
There is horror and tragedy within the story, but it is never gratuitous nor glorified.
If you love great dialogue; if you love great character development and motivation; if you love great direction and timing; if you long for the days when there were actually good, solid, meaningful stories; do yourself a favor and FIND THIS MOVIE.