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Rojo
Argentina / Brazil / France / Netherlands / Germany 2018
produced by Emmanuel Chaumet, Federico Eibuszyc, Rachel Daisy Ellis, Barbara Sarasola-Day, Marleen Slot, Ingmar Trost, Dan Wechsler, Jamal Zeinal Zade for Bord Cadre Films, Desvia Produções, Ecce Films, Pucara Cine, Sutor Kolonko
directed by Benjamín Naishtat
starring Darío Grandinetti, Alfredo Castro, Diego Cremonesi, Andrea Frigerio, Raymond E. Lee
written by Benjamín Naishtat, music by Vincent van Warmerdam
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Argentina, the 1970s, a politically unstable era for the country: All
lawyer Claudio (Darío Grandinetti) really wanted was to have a nice
dinner at a nice restaurant with his wife, but then he gets into trouble
with young hothead Diego, and makes some comments to put the guy over the
edge - which leads to a confrontation later on in a park that results in
Diego trying to shoot himself ... which he survives only barely, but while
Claudio at first actively tries to save his life (but fails as the right
kind of surgeon for Diego's predicament all live hours away), he
eventually dumps him in the desert to die. A few months and a shady deal
with one of his clients later, Claudio learns that Diego was that client's
drama queen wife's brother and that she's out of her mind regarding the
fate of her brother (whose body has never been found) - but now that
client has hired Sinclair, a private detective (and TV personality) with a
100% rate of solving his cases, and this Sinclair, despite his often naive
approach, is anything but stupid, and Claudio, despite being an expert of
the law, wasn't all that clever in hiding his tracks ... Ok, so
this film is a bit over-convoluted, as some storylines (like the one about
Claudio's daughter) just lead nowhere, and at least the political subtext
is a bit confusing for people not familiar with Argentinian history of the
1970s - but at heart, Rojo is just an extremely solid film noir,
made all the more so as it is (like all great film noirs of old) about
very ordinary (even mundane) people getting into situations that are way
over their head with no clear plan to get out of them. And the film's
understatement in both cast and directorial effort really helps in
bringing this to life to the fullest. So ok, for some reasons above not
perfect, but still a very fine genre pic!
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
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