There is a potential movie to watch inside SECUESTRO EXPRESS, a truly frantic ride where the action takes center stage. I wasn't so keen on watching it in theaters but to wait for a DVD copy.
I'm fed up with the ads of the next, newly released "best Venezuelan movie ever" tag printed on local newspapers. Franlky, I've never been a follower of Venezuela's cinema. I find them grotesque and with heavy lack of pace. One exception: Alberto Arvelos' UNA VIDA Y DOS MANDADOS, which was fairly nice and... slow (at times). Coming from a action-driven, cop dramas & sci/fi kind of moviegoer, this is a bit of a stretch.
Genre-less as it may be, Venezuelan movies have found since the 70s a solid spot on the protest side. They serve as a mirror/agenda of our corrupted society, dealing with the lower ways of average, almost random citizens trapped in the bitterness of the establishment. Hence, slices of life on celluloid, as the well-known filmmaker Roman Chalbaud (EL PEZ QUE FUMA) expressed some time ago.
SECUESTRO EXPRESS is quite different from the Chalbaud-Cabrujas-De La Cerda days. This is a movie that actually feels a bit more like a standard one. It is slickly made (ala Tarantino cool at times). You'll feel the stress in your surroundings, guts are bound to be wrenched. Laughter is served in most unusual places. A mess out of the situation leaves you wondering whether to be in nervous cheerfulness or turned-off mode. Definitely not for everyone. It jumps and cuts and crashes heavily, and then some. But, at the end, it's nothing. Confussing? Welcolme to "secuestro express" arena, latinoamerican style.
I haven't experienced a most gruesome condition of man towards a fellow being in the form of a film journey since IRREVERSIBLE. Shocking as it is unpredictable, here is where I point out that the movie really worked. An unforeseen presence of leading characters and no recognizable actors whatsoever (a common default on previous productions that is used here as a bonus). Ruben Blades and Miguelangel Landa (cameo) were merely part of the plot outside the scenario. It is the story that takes you everywhere from almost nowhere. Anything could happen. The viewer doesn't have a clue. Uplifting in the process? A happy ending? This is a Venezuelan movie, no expectations attached.
Stopping myself from sounding as part of the positive hype (goverment officials down here are despising the film for showing a negative and allegedly untrue image of the country), I do express disagreement with certain plot points of the movie. The "friendly" Colombian drug dealer twist was too "only in the movies" for the topic in hand. The bad taxi cabbie in the "it's a small Caracas we live in" was insulting, not to say implausible.
Although it dragged the subject of the poor against the rich, criminal against the wealthy, this could have been a much better film without that red hot politically-charged layer. It kills the genre with, yet again, a social commentary beneath. I know kidnaps, drugs, thefts and other acts of violence inflicted on the human body and mind happen here, there and everywhere. It just happens that April 11th, 2002 happened only here in Venezuela.
Is it a movie movie or a movie poster that reflex ourselves as a society? If so, where are the hardworking majority that take a "carrito" or the bus to go to work everyday? No honest or at least clean people in Venezuela? Mixtures like this get lost in the translation.
Whatever the case, this is just a personal comment. I don't regret watching SECUESTRO EXPRESS. It's wild, just don't buy it as a postcard. Miramax backing it is a bonus, hands down. But the Weinsteins disowning that movie company makes one wonder: Who knows what FAHRENHEIT 9/11 leftover they were leaving at Disney? Point is these players can never be trusted.
I'm fed up with the ads of the next, newly released "best Venezuelan movie ever" tag printed on local newspapers. Franlky, I've never been a follower of Venezuela's cinema. I find them grotesque and with heavy lack of pace. One exception: Alberto Arvelos' UNA VIDA Y DOS MANDADOS, which was fairly nice and... slow (at times). Coming from a action-driven, cop dramas & sci/fi kind of moviegoer, this is a bit of a stretch.
Genre-less as it may be, Venezuelan movies have found since the 70s a solid spot on the protest side. They serve as a mirror/agenda of our corrupted society, dealing with the lower ways of average, almost random citizens trapped in the bitterness of the establishment. Hence, slices of life on celluloid, as the well-known filmmaker Roman Chalbaud (EL PEZ QUE FUMA) expressed some time ago.
SECUESTRO EXPRESS is quite different from the Chalbaud-Cabrujas-De La Cerda days. This is a movie that actually feels a bit more like a standard one. It is slickly made (ala Tarantino cool at times). You'll feel the stress in your surroundings, guts are bound to be wrenched. Laughter is served in most unusual places. A mess out of the situation leaves you wondering whether to be in nervous cheerfulness or turned-off mode. Definitely not for everyone. It jumps and cuts and crashes heavily, and then some. But, at the end, it's nothing. Confussing? Welcolme to "secuestro express" arena, latinoamerican style.
I haven't experienced a most gruesome condition of man towards a fellow being in the form of a film journey since IRREVERSIBLE. Shocking as it is unpredictable, here is where I point out that the movie really worked. An unforeseen presence of leading characters and no recognizable actors whatsoever (a common default on previous productions that is used here as a bonus). Ruben Blades and Miguelangel Landa (cameo) were merely part of the plot outside the scenario. It is the story that takes you everywhere from almost nowhere. Anything could happen. The viewer doesn't have a clue. Uplifting in the process? A happy ending? This is a Venezuelan movie, no expectations attached.
Stopping myself from sounding as part of the positive hype (goverment officials down here are despising the film for showing a negative and allegedly untrue image of the country), I do express disagreement with certain plot points of the movie. The "friendly" Colombian drug dealer twist was too "only in the movies" for the topic in hand. The bad taxi cabbie in the "it's a small Caracas we live in" was insulting, not to say implausible.
Although it dragged the subject of the poor against the rich, criminal against the wealthy, this could have been a much better film without that red hot politically-charged layer. It kills the genre with, yet again, a social commentary beneath. I know kidnaps, drugs, thefts and other acts of violence inflicted on the human body and mind happen here, there and everywhere. It just happens that April 11th, 2002 happened only here in Venezuela.
Is it a movie movie or a movie poster that reflex ourselves as a society? If so, where are the hardworking majority that take a "carrito" or the bus to go to work everyday? No honest or at least clean people in Venezuela? Mixtures like this get lost in the translation.
Whatever the case, this is just a personal comment. I don't regret watching SECUESTRO EXPRESS. It's wild, just don't buy it as a postcard. Miramax backing it is a bonus, hands down. But the Weinsteins disowning that movie company makes one wonder: Who knows what FAHRENHEIT 9/11 leftover they were leaving at Disney? Point is these players can never be trusted.