Smoke & Mirrors

This stylish Spanish feature is quite gorgeous to look at. While it taxes the brain for keeping up with the money laundering antics of the worlds corrupt officials - it make us think about what drives people who have a very high profile lifestyle, yet constantly want more! As a study of the madness of greed, this complex drama explores the nature of the disease and its ability to totally destroy the lives of corrupt businesses (and in this case international dignitaries) Happy family situations and comfortable lives are willingly thrown away and replaced with constant fear and regret. It's difficult to have any compassion for these intelligent people who sacrifice all forms of normality for those extra materialistic millions - reducing themselves to human wrecks at the expense of everyone involved. Wonderful photographic and directorial realisation of it subject is brought to life by a hard working cast. Perhaps it could have been a tad too ambitious to cover this complex, based on fact story, in a movie length feature but at the same time, if it were to be treated as a mini-series it could have been overly heavy going for continued interest. Along the way, it lifts the lid on those political corruption news headlines we see on a daily basis! Those who understand the intricacies of moving large amounts of money in a trailless sequence will find this easier to grasp but, it's certainly an interesting watch as friends and family are used as tools to advance foolish ambitions. This feature is well and truly above average for the trashy World Movies channel and the only real problem are the overly fast moving (and badly placed) subtitles that can't successfully keep up with the fast moving dialog.