Sunday, June 16, 2013

El Crimen Del Padre Amaro (Carlos Carrera, 2002) Review

It is now our last Mexican film for a while...since I've only seen three. I was going to review Man of Steel but I wanted consistency so expect Man of Steel to be the first film of next week. Lets move on to El Crimen Del Padre Amaro, which means The Crime Of Father Amaro...and yes it does star Gael Garcia Bernal...I need to stop watching films with him in them...

Father Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal) is inducted into a Mexican parish church having arrived to the town recently. He is assigned to work under Father Benito (Sancho Gracia). Amaro meets a religious girl named Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancón) who's ambition for religion quickly causes her to grow an attraction to Amaro. Meanwhile, Father Benito finds himself working with a drug-lord in order to help pay for the construction of a band new hospital.

Out of the three Mexican films, this is probably the worst one. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it just means the the film is above average at best. In terms of good stuff, there are some great acting (not really the two main characters since they just come off as awkward at times) and is definitely thought provoking since it focuses on the topic of corruption within the church. Yeah, it's one of those films. It does try to enforce some messages onto the audience.

For the bad stuff there is the second half of the film, mainly. Why? Because the romance plot is really tacked on since it comes out of no-where and just does really feel genuine (although you could potentially argue that that was intentional...but I'm not gonna let you argue that point) and Amaro and Amelia comes off are very bland characters.

So in El Crimen Del Padre Amaro, we have two bland protagonists who take part in a poor romance plotline that is contained in a film with some great acting and a thought provoking topic. So it's a real mixed bag that is easily the worst of the three Mexican films I watched. Next time we will dive straight into the return of the man of steel in...The Man of Steel (I guess calling it Superman or something is just a mad idea!)

Verdict:
6/10
For every step forward, there is a step backwards which can only mean that it's...alright.

No comments:

Post a Comment