No te fallaré

Why making a bad movie out of a bad TV series when most of our cinema is crying for funds? The original TV series were bad enough, mistaking realism with exploitation an sensationalism. It wasn't a series about how our young people are, but as our elders believe we are. It was bad enough, with bad acting, clichés every minute and silly dialogue, but it turned out worse every year, with every episode becoming an excuse to show the girls in underwear and the boys doing stunts as more and more action elements were introduced.

This film, made out quickly to cash in money from the youngsters who liked the series, is as bad as that, but has a bigger budget. It shows the two main characters from the TV series several years later. He, the former rebel, is a waiter in a restaurant. The stupid girl with modeling ambitions has become a dancer and the lover of a small time mafioso. You see where the plot goes, don't you? Indeed. Because she's the girl, she'll get into trouble, and, because he is the boy, he will save her, f*ck her and, after a couple of shootouts and car stunts, return her to safety.

This is shameless exploitation, pure and simple. Occasional sex and violence obey to the rules of the genre, but are offered in small doses only. The rest of it is just sensationalism, sexism (see, dancers and prostitutes are the same, and girls, when they don't have men around to tie them become whores) and low-level drama. Stay away from here unless you enjoy bad movies. Even them, chances are that you will become more bored and angered than entertained.

There's few movies less interesting than this. "No te fallaré" is based on a teenager-soap opera and it's just another episode, but two-hours long. That series (called "Compañeros" -class mates)consisted on people screaming to each other and Eva Santolaria walking through and fro, wearing tight T-shirts and no bra. The situations were so incredible and the teenagers acted so bad that nobody remember "Compañeros" today, and many'd want to forget this movie too.. Quimi and Valle, the main characters, are supposed to be more streetwise and adult-like than the others but they screwed so many things that you wonder how moronic a teenager can be. And, because they're teen-rebels, they are either screaming or crying. Too much drama to be believable. The movie seems to be written by a group of ultra-conservative paranoid fathers wondering what they sons are doing outside home. Well, you won't find the answer here, just screams and boredom.

This film from director Manuel Rios San Martin, working on his own material was a pleasant surprise. At least the movie is entertaining enough and devoid of all the heavy left wing politics so prevalent in most Spanish films.

This is a look at a group of friends who went to the same school together. At the beginning of the film something tragic happens that will change the relationship among friends. Later, the film follows the lives of Valle and Quimi who have been sweethearts in school and now have grown apart.

The acting is good, in general. Eva Santolaria plays Valle, a gorgeous girl with a lot of ambition. Antonio Hortelano is Quimi, the man that loves Valle and will do anything for her. Also in the cast Fernando Guillen Cuervo playing a creepy art dealer and night club operator who wants Valle for himself. Sancho Gracia is Sandro the drug lord who is also after Valle's charms.

Watching the film on cable the only complaint is the erratic soundtrack that makes some intimate conversations at crucial moments almost inaudible.

For those americans that hasn´t seen the TV series, it´s about a group of teenagers and their problems and worries. Now they have grown, three years later, and the accident on the beach in which one of them died when they were celebrating the end of school still tortures them. It´s basically a film about a group of disoriented youngsters, and how they discovered that life was not what they expected it to be.

Eva Santolaria gets the movie with her breathtaking performance of Valle, a 23-year-old go-go. In general, all the actors are quite good, like Sancho Gracia and Fernando Guillén-Cuervo.

The script is very good, and Manuel Ríos San Martín really nows what a director is. Photography is great, too.

This is a wonderful movie for everyone, specially for the fans of the TV series ("Compañeros"-in english "Schoolmates")in which the movie was based. Don´t miss it!