Movie Review: Cronicas

[46and2aheadofme]

TweetThis movie is in Spanish with English subtitles (dubbing is the antichrist in my opinion but that's a whole 'nother thread).

OK, if you're still reading, I like you. You realize that some movies are made in other languages, and you're willing to read a little bit in order to avoid missing some of the best movies of our time like The Motorcycle Diaries. Thumbs up to you!

Cronicas is about spanish-television anchorman Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo in another excellent performance), but he's not an anchorman like Ron Burgundy. Bonilla is in Ecuador with his 3-person team covering something or other when he witnesses a scene after which a man named Vinicio (Damian Acazar) is seemingly wrongly incarcerated. Vinicio wants Bonilla to do a story about him in order to get him freed, in return for which Vinicio offers to give Bonilla information about The Monster, a terrible serial rapist/murder who is preying on children all over the region.

But it turns out that Vinicio knows a lot about "The Monster", and Bonilla grows suspicious. How far will Bonilla, an arrogant, highly driven Miami news anchor, go for the truth? And, more importantly, does he even want to know the truth?

The great scenes in this movie are the interviews between Leguizamo and Acazar. Acazar's performance is absolutely riveting. Is he or isn't he? The rest of Bonilla's news team is a bit wooden and stereotypical, doing things that you would expect them to do. But Acazar's performance more than makes up for it.

If you don't mind seeing gritty and real South American backgrounds, and you don't mind the dark subject matter of delving into the mind of a character who might be a pedophile and killer, then you should like this movie. I came away from the ending troubled and a little shocked, and 2 days later I'm still thinking about it. If a movie can do that to me, I think it's worth recommending.

46 says 7/10.

For more info, see https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382621/

[NATE]

Tweetsounds like a snoozefest to me....

[solidground]

Tweeti saw it recently..bc i see just about every movie foreign and american..i thought it was a really good movie

[Lily]

TweetThanks! Just added it to my netflix!

[46and2aheadofme]

Tweet

sounds like a snoozefest to me....

Yeah, not much action. Cronicas is mainly about the filmography (the local backdrop) and the characters, including a psycho killer that would make Hannibal Lecter run away and pee his pants.