cortinalcaraz

This here may be the description of my favorite movie of all time (strangely being Spanish, as I don't usually like Spanish cinema this much).

Let's take it from the top. Technically, this is a marvelous movie, well-directed, edited and written. The acting is amazing, Luis Tosar, Luis Callejo and Jaime López make this once in a life-time trio (with similar characteristics to the trio from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly), with three performances worth recognition world-wide (there's always talk about Portman in Leon, Bale in Empire of the Sun and Jacob Tremblay in Room, but that's because we haven't seen López's performance in Intemperie).

The cinematography is also masterfully used, reaching the level of movies such as Lawrence of Arabia, Blade Runner or La La Land (not yet with The Revenant, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford or Blade Runner 2049).

Music joins the movie in beatiful ways, with Silvia Pérez making one of the best original songs of last year, that gave her the Goya for Best Original Song). Silence is also one of the elements that contributes to the greatness of this film.

Lastly, let's talk about the theme, the centre of this movie. I've seen a lot of people said that you need to talk about the context of Spain to understand the movie. I don't agree with that, the picture stands up for itself, and as most of westerns, you don't need to be into history to understand them. This movie is almost about a hunt and, therefore, the run, inside a broken society, that presents itself in the movie. The power, and the defiance of it. About loyalty, death and life. The corruption of a kid, interrupted by the kind of man that the world has always needed, to stop the madness of a more and more selfish society. This is what that movie simbolyses for me.

Overall, this movie is a nice invested time, and one of the hidden gems of modern cinema, and I'm sad it has this rating.

Anyway, I don't think I need to explain why this movie is, if not my favorite, one of my favorites of all time.

Hope you enjoy it and that this review was useful!!

I watched this yesterday so many of the things I'm going to say are coming just from the top of my head. Okay, so the top of my head is: WOW. Kudos to Shaka King for this truly great movie. The movie takes us rapidly through the start, development and downfall of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and, by that, the whole Black Panther party, and how the FBI focused on Hampton form the very beginning. I say rapidly because when Spike Lee made one of his masterpieces, Malcolm X (1992), he took 3h and 20 min. to tell us. Now, even considering Hampton's life was way shorter, the astounding runtime of 2h and 5 min to mix FBI chasing Hampton and the Panthers, O'Neal and FBI relations and even Hampton's history itself. The side story is the romance between Hampton and his fiancée Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback). The title couldn't have been more accurate, given the movie is about the betrayal of Fred Hampton by Bill O'Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), a man who ended up admiring the activist, who was exactly the opposite of what the US government was in the 60s. Great screenplay from Shaka King and Will Berson, with efficient techniques and interesting themes (I really think this was a topic that should have been made way before). Good cinematography (not the best of all time, it's not a Deakins or a Lubezki, but it's certainly an 8/10), that allows you to get even more in the revolutionary movements, the betrayal of Bill O'Neal and even the importance of Fred Hampton). A 10 in acting: there are very few films with such an incredible acting ('Whatever Happened to Baby Jane', 'The Master' or 'The Godfather' are other examples). I love how Lakeith is glowing, because he's amazing, and he's going to have a great future. Even though, Kaluuya and Fishback take the stand here as the stars. There's a scene between Kaluuya and Lakeith that gave me goosebumps, and Fishback gives a masterclass of acting on the penultimate scene of the movie. I just have to say everyone involved in this movie, and the movie itself, have a great future. You can't talk about this movie without at least mentioning the next two characters in importance in the movie: Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) and J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen). They both give a good performance in very little time, and show they're really versatile actors (Martin Sheen can be pointed out, given the fact that he has to take the torch from the breathtaking Leonardo DiCaprio in J. Edgar, 2011, and he does it extremely well). Really enjoyable and one of the best movies of the year for me, and I recommend it to everybody.

This is, to this day, the most perfect movie of Disney. The Shakespearean movie is probably the most heartwarm film of this company that outdid itself with this one. Isn't it amazing how a performance in an animated movie can give you goosebumps? Even though all the great aspects of the film, I would say Jeremy Irons finds a way to steal the show, encarnating the heartless Scar, an abandoned brother who gets his revenge. The music is amazing, the rest of the cast is also good, the screenplay hooks you into the movie from the beginning (thanks to Shakespeare), and even the cinematography (which is ridiculous to say, given the fact that we're talking about an animated movie). To sum up, this movie is almost perfect in ever sense, though some things could be lightly improved (the animation for example).