I was disappointed with this film. The first half is boring, unengaging and very poorly shot. The nervous hand-held camera and the fast editing are very irritating, and completely unnecessary. It really put me off. It might seem very cool and trendy, and you can tell the director might have shot lots of music videos and commercial spots, but it's poor storytelling. Cause it doesn't allow you to sink your heart into the film, to feel it. It might be appropriate for films like Moulin Rouge, but not for a drama like this. There's no depth in the construction of the characters, and there is nothing special about Salvador's character, there's nothing about him that makes his tragic death special save for the fact that it is horrendously brutal. We don't get to know his foibles, his weaknesses, his dreams. It's funny how the death of the protagonist of 'Dead Man Walking' -a true murderer- is far more moving and affecting than this one. And the second half is more engaging, although it has a TV movie feel to it. Leonardo Sbaraglia's character is the most interesting of them all, the only one who has some kind of evolution arc. But even the ending, which could so easily have been powerful and touching, given the extent of the tragedy, is somehow rendered bland and anticlimactic, due to the intercutting of a sentimental scene in which the youngest sister runs to the place where the execution is going to take place while we overhear in voice-over the corny words that Salvador dedicated to her the last time she saw him,and also due to poor camera-work at the moment of the execution. Again the camera can't stand still and starts going in unjustified circles in a moment where we should all be holding our breaths.
