Hombres complicados

Belgian cinema has never been very popular and that's a shame. I admit that most of the movies made over here aren't worth much, but sometimes you'll get a little gem like Hombres Complicados.

It's the story of two completely different brothers. Bruno is a loser who works for the customs, never does anything wrong or exciting in his life, married and always faithful to his wife. Roger is the complete opposite of him. Roger cheats on his wife, never sees his kid and tries to make some extra money with all kind of criminal activities. Now their mother died and they meet each other again for the first time in years. Because Roger has a lot of debts and some criminals will kill him if he doesn't pay, he tries to convince his brother to help him by helping the criminals, closing an eye when their shipments pass at the customs...

Hombres Complicados has been shot in a very gritty style. At first you think it's only because of the lack of a big budget, but as the movie progresses, the grittiness adds an extra touch to the story. Liège is an obscure, rather dirty city, where criminals thrive, but thanks to the way the movie was shot, the city seems even more repelling and darker than it really is (and I know the city, I used to work there).

It's too bad that this movie never got much attention. Perhaps that is because of the very dark humor and, for our movies, not so obvious content. Personally I like the movie a lot because it is so dark and funny. I give it an 8/10.