DVD of the Week: Carancho

Here’s one of my Best Movies of 2011 – So Far.

Well, they have ambulance chasers in Argentina, too, and that seamy world is the setting for this dark and violent noirish thriller.  Ricardo Darin (The Secrets of Their Eyes, Nine Queens) stars as a suspended lawyer running insurance scams.    (I think of Darin as the Argentine Joe Mantegna.)  Set in the gloom of urban nighttime emergency rooms and funeral homes, it’s a love story between the lawyer and an equally troubled doctor (Martina Gusman), nestled into a crime thriller.

The story is as cynical and dark as it comes.  The handheld camera keeps it out of the noir category, but the story is as hard-bitten as Kiss Me Deadly or any of the really nasty noirs. The violence is realistic, and there’s lots of it – I had never seen anyone beaten to death with a file drawer before.  If you like dark and edgy (and I do), this is the film for you.

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