Rating: C+
Dir: Andres Beltran
Star: Alejandra Chamorro, Roberto Cano, Gloria Montoya, Carlos Fonseca
a.k.a. Malos Días
Ramirez (Cano) and his sidekick are assassins. After an assignment goes a bit pear-shaped, they end up seeking medical attention at a house deep in the wilderness. Inside are Lucia (Chamorro) and her teenage daughter, Emilia (Montoya) who are, understandably, initially wary of the unexpected arrivals on their doorstep. However, it turns out there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. Because there was recently a robbery of an emerald mine, carried out by a man known as The Turk and his sidekick. The proceeds from this might be something Lucia is guarding, and matters are complicated further by the arrival of her ex-husband Fernando (Fonseca), then The Turk and his plus one.
It’s clearly a small-scale production, with 90% of the film taking place in and around the house, where Ramirez and Lucia jockey for psychological superiority, using womanly wiles to try and manipulate him to her will. Ramirez is not entirely dumb, and is obviously aware of what she is trying to do. But Emilia has her own agenda as well, and is unimpressed with her mother acting less like a mother and more, as she puts it, like another profession. That earns the daughter a well-justified slap. The issue is, there is just too much sitting around and chatting here. While I can’t complain about the tension on view – sexual and otherwise – the film needs some kind of release.
When, first, Fernando and then The Turk show up, things become even more tense and, remarkably, even more chatty. For example, you get The Turk telling Emilia the entire fable of The Scorpion and the Frog: I’m fairly sure we’re all familiar with this one, basically ending in “Well, it’s my nature, innit?” It’s not hard to work out where it is all going to go, and does get there eventually. If it could have done so rather quicker, or not back-loaded everything as much, compressing it into about thirty seconds of mayhem, that would have been helpful, I suspect. I was additionally distracted by The Turk looking like the Most Interesting Man in the World, while Fernando had strayed in from a Hispanic remake of Napoleon Dynamite.
If the plot has its issues, the performances are decent, and capable of keeping my interest when the story did not. All the characters are working toward their own goals, and tend not to be too bothered about who gets trampled on the way there. Once you realize this, every conversation thereafter seems take place on multiple levels, and though these scenes do run out of appeal before the end, they still have their moments. The explanation Fernando gives to a bar owner whee he has stopped for a beer, is particularly engaging. It would be fair to call it an exposition dump, yet if you have to do an exposition dump, you might as well make it enjoyable to watch.