The Candidate

This movie builds up until it explodes and lets you breathe again. Prepare to make some diving exercices because if you want to chill out this is not your movie. The portrayal of corruption is put on a very disturbing note and feels constantly hunting you. It reminds me of the best build up tension scenes along with for example Sicario (Denis Villeneuve) . Very well directed and very well acted , this shows what a talent Sorogoyen and Antonio de la Torre are. Probably my favorite movie of 2018 and my favorite spanish movie as of today along with Volver.

What an unbelievable actor is Antonio de la Torre! He has such a natural way of acting. The film itself was fantastic too.

I could barely understand the convoluted plot and there are some absolutely senseless and pointless parts of it towards the end. Really confusing storyline as though they couldn't think what to put in next to shock.

Having said that, the acting and locations is of a good order so it's not a total waste. If you can fathom the point of the scene in the petrol station I'd be glad to know !!

I really liked this movie. From the start tension is building up all the way to great finale on television show. Soundtrack is excellent and helps with building tension up. Acting is superb expecially main character Manuel. Plot is interesting but maybe sometimes hard to follow because there is lots of characters. Pacing of the movie is in my opinion not very well because in some parts lots of things are happening and in some parts it fells like notging important is going on. Movie would really benefit in being just a little shorter, maybe 10 minutes or so. All in all really enjoyable movie with interesting plot and I recommend it to all people.

With a slightly shaky cam, a monotonous thumping techno score and some of the best performances of this year, we are introduced to a group of Spanish politicians with a serious fraudulent past. Their arrogance and naive feeling of invincibility is soon destroyed, when all their corrupt businesses are slowly brought to the attention of the press.

The gravity of the situation only hits the audience when it hits the characters: too late. In over their head with only a couple of options to save their own skin, they are put before several moral questions that will have you bite your finger nails the whole ride.

Manuel, the main character, seems a true human being that could have walked out of a real life politics debate for all we know. Antonio de la Torre's performance is out of this world! But not only he deserves credit for his amazing acting. No one ever misses a note and the result is a film full of conflicting personal relationships that are realistic in a rather scary way.

The music is a bit of a bummer though... The techno-beats never build up towards a finale, while the movie itself is a thrilling rollercoaster that ends in a frontal collision with a brick wall. This - as I already mentioned - monotonous score doesn't improve the movie one bit.

But the directing by Rodrigo Sorogoyen is compelling. He made a political scandal into a grand fight between rivals and friends. There is no violence. But I held my breath for the complete final hour. The ending was a bit too suden for my taste though.

Yet, I cannot stress this enough: it was rousing, it was absolutely riveting.