Giallo - Reféns do Medo

Dario Argento's latest "Giallo" is definitely brutal and grim, but regretfully still not a genuine throwback to the old-fashioned years of the Giallo; a sub genre of horror that Argento pretty much co-founded as well. This is one of the first times in his career that Argento didn't write the original screenplay himself, but he easily could have, since the film is chock-full of his usual trademarks, including misogynist torture, macho cop characters and a killer character with a hideous appearance and sick persona. In the city of Turin, a hood-capped killer abducts pretty young girls in his taxi and takes them to his secret liar where he has an operating table and a wide selection of delightful torture devices. When the killer was just a baby, apparently his heroine-addicted prostitute of a mother dropped him off at a nunnery in a plastic bag. I suppose that causes something irreversible damage to the fragile mind of a young boy. He also has a liver disease that makes the color of his skin kind of yellow; hence the title. When he kidnaps the gorgeous young model Celine, her older sister Linda teams up with Inspector Enzo Avolfi, who's actually a pretty introvert and reasonably creepy individual himself. The plot of "Giallo" is ultra-thin and not nearly as imaginative as they used to be, with a truckload of red herrings and more twists than a French mountain road, but there are still multiple moments of gripping suspense. The violence, however, is following the trend of the nowadays torture porn flicks (like "Hostel" and "Saw") and just comes across as repulsive, gratuitous and uncompromising. The sniveling killer pulls teeth and carves up the girls' pretty faces like he's on the set of the umpteenth unnecessary torture porn flick instead of a Dario Argento Giallo homage. The murders in Gialli movies have always been sadistic and gruesome, but at least they were often presented in style. But enough complaints now, as "Giallo" undeniably still is a worthwhile film for Dario Argento fanatics like myself and many others. I'm sick and tired of reading stuff like how the legendary Italian director Dario Argento lost his magical touch and ought to retire! As far as I'm concerned, Argento is still the only one who delivered a genuine Giallo in the post-2000's (with "Sleepless") and his other efforts like "The Third Mother", "Do you like Hitchcock" and the two episodes in Masters of Horror are fantastic entertainment.

Giallo (2009)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Looking at the title and seeing Argento's name, you might expect this film to be a giallo but you'd be mistaken. Set in Italy, a woman gets kidnapped by a psychopath killer so her sister (Emmanuelle Seigner) teams up with an Inspector (Adrien Brody) to try and locate her. There's no question that Argento's career has been very hit and miss over the past twenty-years but I've been pretty kind to him finding many of the films to be entertaining for what they are. At the same times he's made some really bad stuff like PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? and while this one here isn't that bad, it's still lower level stuff and it's a shame considering I'm sure many were hoping for a better project. The biggest problem is the screenplay that is downright horrid as it gives us no characters to care for, an idiotic killer and some really lame dialogue. The story jumps around so much that at times it feels as if the movie doesn't know what it's trying to do or what type of story it's trying to tell. The sister characters come across as people we can't really stand so we don't care if they live or die. The Inspector character isn't any better as the screenplay tries to give him some backstory yet it's nothing interesting or deep enough to make us care. Then there's the killer known as "Yellow" because of his skin color. I'm really not sure what they were thinking but it just doesn't work. The film throws in some rather tame death sequences with many of them happening off screen. We do get a few gory shots that are pretty over the top but nothing we haven't seen countless times before. Female characters have never been a strong point in any Argento film and that continues here as I really didn't care for Seigner's character or her performance. Watching Brody here you have to keep pinching yourself that he's an Oscar-winner as he really doesn't come off looking too good. Then we have Argento who must have lost any of his stylish eye because there's very little. All in all, this is a pretty big mess and a real disappointment for me as I was one of the few who really enjoyed his third entry in the Three Mothers series. I do hope he continues to make more films but hopefully they'll turn out better than this.

When the man responsible for some of the best giallos ever made directs a movie simply titled Giallo, then I suppose one might reasonably expect him to fully embrace the conventions of the genre (many of which he was instrumental in establishing). Instead, Argento only loosely follows the giallo format, the grimy approach he adopts being more akin to the recent US 'torture porn' trend, a fact that has unsurprisingly caused something of a critical backlash from fans of Italian horror.

But although Giallo clearly doesn't warrant its title, and, devoid of his usual visual flair and labyrinthine storytelling, is far from the director's best work, neither is it totally deserving of the drubbing it has received.

The film moves along briskly enough, switching regularly between crime and police procedure to ensure that boredom never sets in; the hero cop-with-a-dark-past, Enzo Avolfi, is played with conviction by Adrien Brody; Emmanuelle Seigner makes for a decent enough side-kick; the rather lovely Elsa Pataky is required only to look scared and beautiful, but does so convincingly; and the strangely familiar killer is delightfully daft—an ugly, dummy-sucking, bandana-wearing taxi-driver with yellow skin (caused by a dose of Hepatitis C, inherited from his junkie mother) and a hatred of all things beautiful.

Argento also finds time for a few seriously nasty moments, including a graphic hammer to the skull scene, a nasty bit of finger pruning (resulting in plenty of pumping blood), and a wince-inducing moment involving shards of broken glass.

Whilst it is true that Argento's typical sense of style might be lacking on this occasion, there is still enough to enjoy about this film to make it worth a go—after all, even Argento at his worst is better than many other directors at their best.

I couldn't believe the ratings for this movie and after watching it i really think that it deserves a solid 5 or 5.5.

Biggest drawback is the yellow bad guy who is presented as a degenerated handicap who just wants to get rid of everything beautiful. The resemblance to Rambo is just obvious and it looks like a comedy from time to time. Minus 4 points for that. Revealing the identity of the bad guy too early just makes the movie take another hit as a viewer might get a little uninterested. "Yeah that's him, and yes they're going to catch him sooner or later. Why keep watching this?" Brody saves the movie from falling too deep and obviously this movie seems very professionally executed with strong visual side. It is just too bad that it falls into below average TV thriller category and there just doesn't seem to be enough plot for a full movie. In the end this movie is more of a horror movie than a giallo thriller.

Is it still worthwhile to watch it? Yes if u are not expecting a masterpiece and just some fun. Argento style is still definitely there and it's just hard to find any message that the director wants to say with this.

Still i give it a 6 because i was entertained.

On the part of promotion this title couldn't been better. Dario Argento, the master of old school giallo's made a flick called, Giallo. For all those who think that he isn't softened they will be disappointed by this thriller, Yes, this is definitely not a giallo.

"Giallo" films are characterized by extended murder sequences featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camera-work and unusual musical arrangements. The literary whodunit element is retained, but combined with modern slasher horror, while being filtered through Italy's longstanding tradition of opera and staged grand guignol drama. They also generally include liberal amounts of nudity and sex.

None of this is included here. Why it is called Giallo, which means yellow is because once the killer is revealed, in the first part, you can see that his face is yellow due hepatitis.

I didn't had any difficulty with the flick itself which do has a few typical gory Argento shots but the acting of Emmanuelle Seigner (Linda) couldn't convince me. Adrian Brody (Inspector Enzo Avolfi) did look like those typical smoking Italian detectives and reminded me of a Tom Savini look-a-like.

I understand that Argento geeks will hate this but it's worth watching. A mediocre flick.

Gore 2/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5