I can't believe there's only ONE review for this movie! I just saw it and have so much fun from beginning to end that it's almost impossible to describe!
Within its genre this movie is a masterpiece, this movie is...PERFECT! Black humor from the word GO, relentless, suspenseful, hilarious... it has EVERYTHING!!! On top of that its script is so clever, SO CLEVER that you don't have an idea.
Everything came out as round and smooth as that crystal skull they found in Perú (or some place like that) and it's --they say-- several thousand years old, but with a surface so smooth that only could have been polished with a laser beam. This is exactly the impression I got from this film, sheer perfection!!!
Convoluted script, because it consists of several layers, layers the director peels away, one by one, like a superb magician and you look like a dumb child, the trick being performed in front of your naked eyes but you don't see the obvious tricks until towards the end when the whole puzzle starts getting its pieces in the right places and you close your open mouth saying: "Well... I'll be darn... so that was the way it happened"...
I tell you, incredible.
As incredible as the acting, because the idea is quite difficult to put through and make it believable --truly believable-- otherwise, with mediocre actors, this film would have crumbled from the very beginning, and these crew was superb (maybe with a small reservation for Val Kilmer, over the top in his overacting bit, fortunately in a cameo part) but the two women were fantastic.
Yet you get to know the characters little by little, small gestures, ticks, reactions to one another according to the dialog, situations, doubts, a myriad things, and yet, you are fooled from beginning to end, one step unfolding its real meaning until the next step unfolds a new, unexpected surprise, till the very last frame!!!
One of the best movies I've ever seen, and I hate movies with this kind of characters that speak with those accents and live in those places and listen to that kind of music!!!
Granted, it isn't "Pantaleón y las visitadoras" (2000), "Barry Lyndon" (1975), "Death in Venice" (1971), "L'ínnocente" (1976), "Tous les matins du monde" (1991), "Blade Runner" (1982), "Le scaphandre et le papillon" (2007), "Los otros" (2001), "Tom Jones" (1963) -- I just mentioned a few of the many movies I admire and will stay with me forever more, but again, considering the characters, their place under the sun, their music and their speaking accents... this movie is TOP DRAWER. (And I myself have the nerve to talk about accents in English...!!!).
