Adios Vaya Con Dios

What I appreciated most about Adios Vaya Con Dios was the careful attention to the details with the ensemble of criminals in the film. The movie plays like an artistic documentary following Rory King, played by writer Zachary Laoutides in a typical week inside the Chicago neighborhoods. The story takes an authentic approach and achieves what it set out to accomplish, to make us feel we are always in journey with Rory. At times it's fun being a fly on the wall, being intrigued by the details of crime and the intricate characters Laoutides creates.

Gio Angeli, played by Joseph Mennella, one the few Italians left in the neighborhood that desperately tries to hold grips on a fading dynasty, efforts to flex his muscles while his father is locked up in Jail. Rory's cousin Maurice, played by Michael Hammond, a police officer who is racially mixed like himself, whose corruption runs deep not from his Mexican roots, rather his Irish family. These are just a few of the diverse casts that makes Adios Vaya Con Dios a smart film demanding we pay close attention from the opening scene where Spanish Narration gives us extra intelligence on what Rory King is contemplating as he strains to figure out his exit strategy.

Although we may sense the film can be overly artistic at stretches you need to applaud the artistic choices as the film takes the genre of urban, gangster and Latino and in its place prepares the experience as organic and alternative. It's a dish that works and a tale worth revisiting if the story of an Irish Mexican finds his way back again into the callous mean streets.

A gangster art house film. There I said it, never thought I would, never thought I would see a Chicago movie about gangs play out as an artistic piece; reminiscent at times of Alejandro González Iñárritu's early work Amores Perros. This is a much more organic attempt at mixing real people and real places into a cinematic story. At moments I could tell the local actors who were picked up and placed into the movie from the theater actors (at times over projecting) to the film actors who performed in refinement.

Adios Vaya Con Dios is a mix of different intensities, but it works just as good as it will get knowing how movie was filmed. Zachary Laoutides' unconventional script gives us something completely distinctive then what we would expect a stereotypical Latino gangster movie to include. It's even difficult for me to call it 'gangster' or 'Latino' for that matter. It's something unalike on the artistic side of the tracks and because of that I enjoyed it. Art wins in the streets.

Maybe it's the euro rock music that was selected featuring artists from the UK and Mexico that transformed the tempo of the film or maybe it's the realism of every time Zachary Laoutides is on camera and we see his internal pain, a rather silent performance, but he doesn't need to say much. I'm interested in following the La Raza film movement, so it's been coined; to see what this group of artists create next as it's something fresh and stimulating, not falling into the cliché of movie-making.

We trail lead nominated actor and writer Zachary Laoutides, Rory King, over his journey to bounce town only to have his friend Eloy get released from prison, flinging his strategies of getaway to the wind. Zachary Laoutides gives a nearly silent performance at times; we see his distress walking through the dangerous streets concluded by his despondent face. I speculated why his performance was reserved, but it makes sense, as urban cities tend to become the recluse havens where gangs become ones voice. Rory King being half Mexican with an Irish last name adds to his trauma.

Marius Iliescu playing the Olmec gang leader Tiger as well as his young brother, Bones, played my Emmanuel Isaac show the insanity of gang allegiances. Something Rory King is trying to escape. The movie is shot artistically, from Timothy J. Aguado's swapping from black and white, to his raw shots of Rory's burning off his tattoos. The film impressions are dated belonging in the late 70's or early 80's, a foreign grouping with Spanish narration throughout the movie. To his acclaim Zachary Laoutides' writing keeps a rapidity that never gets dull moving us artistically from one scene to the next by way of music video mixtures, to serious situations with very serious repercussions.

The film seems to hint another chapter, which may be the methodology of what Zachary Laoutides is trying to achieve, the survival rate for the main characters appear at good odds, their larger then life one-liners and intricate development look like they can stick around for yet another phase.

I don't think we can demand a more creative script and film from the ingredients we see recycled in Hollywood every year. Writer and actor Zachary Laoutides teams up with Executive Producer Monica Esmeralda Leon using her tough neighborhood not only to setup the locations for the movie, but also integrating all walks of life from inside the neighborhoods metamorphosis-iring them into actors and actresses. It's not only the reality of using the human materials from the streets, but the studio Ave Fenix Pictures borrowing real stories that have become legend to the locals while using an art house film approach.

At times the film recalls a European Spaniard sense of cinema, having a stable Spanish narrator giving extra facts and storyline as the movie travels forward. The cinema looks aged, dark, raw and at times grainy moving us into the next episodic quest Rory must attend to. The movie is scored by European ambient psychedelic rock by United Kingdom musicians Liam Williams and Joel Goldbreg. Mexican pop start Gaston Sanchez joins in with alternative beats that give us classic Sylvester Stallone montages.

Adios Vaya Con Dios Bel-Air Film Festivals Official Selection racking up several nominations is a work of art, is a work of the tragedy and beauty of where one grows up. Too bad Adios Vaya Con Dios didn't embark on the art house film festivals circuit, as I believe they would have quadrupled awards and nominations constructing a nonpareil film not observed before.

With an over-saturation of Independent films, and 'no' I'm not including the low budget B- Movies that pop out for genre fair, do yourself a favor and check out Adios Vaya Con Dios. Don't be deceived by the premise that reflects a gangster movie. The film couldn't have been put together more creatively and the experimentation of bringing the genuine community into the movie pays off.

Highly original, that is the title of this review because it is and someone needs to be the advocate of the art house film approach to a gangster genre film. The movie that comes to observance on the same parity would be the Brazilian film City of God. That film in particular had twenty times the budget (being a throw back 70's piece), but like Adios Vaya Con Dios there was an artistic methodology. In Adios Vaya Con Dios the film is less action and more talk, more the analysis of social issues that plague the Chicago Latino communities. It's a smart film and 'no' they don't insult my intelligence, nor will they yours.

I'll be straightforward, with the few independent films I will watch in 2016, I want to be hard, I want to be critical, I want to smack sense into filmmakers once and a while. The poster of the movie invited me; I wanted to 'throw down' some film tips to Adios Vaya Con Dios and shame on me. This film humbled me, watching the behind the scenes further made me appreciate the bravery of all the participants.

Mean and ugly neighborhoods can create the most beautiful and imaginary minds. The coming together of executive producer Monica Esmeralda Leon and writer/actor Zachary Laoutides collaborated a perfect artistry in the streets. I hope people pay attention.