Gimlet (1995) Poster

(1995)

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6/10
Spanish Neo-Noir Film with mysterious roles, intrigue and grisly murders with various suspect men
ma-cortes20 January 2020
Spanish Noir Film dealing with weird characters, suspenseful events and strange incidents. Concerns Julia, Angela Molina, who runs a trendy Cocktail Pub at Barcelona when shows up a murdered corpse. As his body heart appears cut off and signals of a strong violence. He was a waiter working for Julia who's been dating with him. Things go wrong when another killing takes place. While Julia receives some video tapes and strange anonymous messages. That's why the chief comisario, Luis Marco, gives her full-time protection. Along the way a mysterious stalker seems to be too much attracted to her, holding a crazy love for Julia . Will we find out the killer?

A decent Film Noir with its usual elements : rare roles, pesimist portrayals, Amor Fou, fatalism, corrupt policemen, Venetian blinds, astonishing murders with a lot of suspect people, sordid environments and anything else. The film title comes from Gimlet as a cocktail drink usually drunk by Philip Marlowe, the classic detective written by Raymond Chandler. This is a cocktail made at Cocktail Bar by blending both, Lima juice, and Ginever or Ginebra. The picture pays tribute to Jean Pierre Melville's Le Samurai at its final scenes. Main cast and secondary actors are pretty well. Angela Molina gives an acceptable acting as a good woman treating men with caution, avoiding love too much by neither suffering, nor pain . In the Nineties Angela enjoyed a big time, performing in notorious movies, such as Las cosas del querer, Carne trémula, Baile de las animas, El Viento se llevo lo que, Jara or El Mar. And Viggo Mortensen is good as the mysterious stalker at his first intervention in Spanish cinema, continuing La Pistola de mi Hermano by Ray Loriga. Support cast is pretty good such as : Abel Folk as the cop who falls in love for her, Pep Cruz as the violent police officer Nuñez. And special mention for Luis Marco as police inspector boss whose eyes are always covered, as he awaits the completion of treatment and along the way he's on the verge of a breakdown while he doesn't solve the ominous crimes.

The flick packs a colorful cinematography, mostly shot in interior sets, by Jesús Escosa. As well as atmospheric and adequate musical score by Alexander Bubenheim. The picture was well directed by Jose Luis Acosta, being his film debut. He, subsequently, made another movie No dejare que me quieras and wrote La mujer de mi vida. Following his career as a TV writer in popular television and series as Los Ladrones no van a la oficina, Sin tetas no hay paraiso, UCO, Family, No te puedes esconder, A las 11 en casa, Señor Alcalde, Fuera de lugar Con el culo al aire and Ana y los siete. Rating 6.5/10. Decent, acceptable and passable Spanish Film Noir. Well worth watching.
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Viggo pays his dues in ho-hum Spanish thriller
lor_30 September 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Not unlike the career arc of Sharon Stone, Viggo Mortensen toiled in many a sub-par movie assignment before achieving stardom (and perhaps immortality via LOTR). This 1995 Spanish potboiler may hold modest interest for his fans retroactively.

SPOILER ALERT:

It's not technically a spoiler to reveal that Viggo plays the homicidal madman. That's because after seeing his name prominently in the opening credits, fully 53 minutes (of 87 total) elapse before he shows up in the movie, handling the Spanish dialog well but transparently behaving oddly as the long-sought killer.

Heroine Angela Molina, who is arguably the quintessential Spanish actress of all time (and still going strong), plays her lead "lady-in-jeopardy" role glumly, perhaps sour at her agent for hooking her up with hack director (primarly a writer) Jose Luis Acosta. It's a far cry from her emoting for top talents like Bunuel, Bellocchio, Pontecorvo or Almodovar.

She runs a bar/restaurant where a barman has been murdered -his heart cut out. Molina keeps receiving videotapes showing her under surveillance from a nutty stalker (Viggo it turns out). An undercover cop is hired as the replacement bartender and the film's pointless "no need to translate" title GIMLET derives from the drink, which she asks him to prepare as a test of his skills as a mixologist.

As a police procedural the film is deadly dull, and a dumb subplot about the incompetent cop whose duty is to protect Angela (but who is more intent on raping women himself than doing his job) is both distracting and poorly scripted. Running gag of the lead cop "blind" with his eyes bandaged for nearly the entire film seems a desperate attempt to add some sort of significance or symbolism to a pedestrian movie.

Once Viggo enters the scene and the genre changes from whodunit to psycho case history, the film perks up a bit thanks to his animal magnetism. Though latterly a larger-than-life hero he has great potential as a villain; reminding me of Raymond Burr's earlier roles and spotlight in Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW, though we all know him forever as the latter-day lovable "Perry Mason" or "Ironside".

As far as plotting, writer-director Acosta's skills are summed up aptly by Molina when she tells the head cop (translated): "None of it makes any sense".

Technical credits are unimpressive and attempts at gore (blood-dripping human heart or freshly severed neck) are lame.
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8/10
I liked this movie a lot more than most different language films I've seen.
dita-313 December 1999
Gimlet was a very emotional film, about a lady with an obsessive stalker, and has a twist at the end. This is one of the movies that gets not nearly as much praise as it deserves, as the acting is good as well as the plot. I am not a big fan of subtitles, but it was worth it.
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