Reviews

Seems like it was written by someone without film schooling, or even kidergarten education. It has the need to remind us of how bad was Trujillo in every moment of the picture: No imagination, no intelligence, an insult to any educated viewer.

The acting is poor, someone even confused Marc Anthony with an actor, a recognized actress like Lumi Cavazos (Like Water for Chocolate) was given aproximately four lines in the entire movie, characters are non-existent, a butterfly would have more depth.

A portrayal of the horrors of that era deserves an infinitely better film.

Placing this film's political agenda aside. It is still a film that fails plot-wise. It tries to portray childhood friendship, love, self sacrifice, commitment to ideals and justice, but...

The bonding between the two would-be-martyrs is never fully exploited. It reveals itself in the end, but we don't see this relationship being developed. So we don't really care about their friendship.

The female character (romantic interest?) is very weak. Again we don't see a deep relationship that justifies the extent in which she gets involved.

The one element that gets scrutinized is one's characters commitment to the cause. We get a very convincing and heart breaking reason for it. But the failures at character development, only lead us to believe that this young man's lines are only placeholders for propaganda.

We get tension, and a light of hope, it does make for a very interesting movie. But it would have been much more thrilling if the time that is gained by a certain plot twist, had been spent intensifying the human side of those labeled as just 'suicidal fanatics'.

The counterfeiters is your typical holocaust film: shocking because of the atrocities, tense because you are always expecting the worst from the Nazis, we see things mostly from the point of view of the victims who are portrayed either like geniuses or heroes.

The better moments come from the specifics we are given on the craft or art of counterfeiting, how they managed to replicate the pound's paper, or the process of collotyping. After being witness to all that labor, and knowing the consequences of failing we wait with nervousness for the outcome of the operation, almost taking side with the Nazis :(.

Conforming to the idea I have of German or Austrian films, this one is too serious. A way to make people care for the characters is by injecting a little bit of humor, it breaks the tension for a second and shows us that these are human beings who in other circumstances would be able to be happy. This movie doesn't bring the characters closer to our hearts.

Even trying with all his might the director couldn't make it worse. I know Colombia, and the violence was exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness. How many people did the young guy kill for no big reason? like 10? For god's sake he even kills someone because his lover doesn't enjoy whistlers! In Colombia there are laws and police, and even if ineffective they would catch a killer so emotional and with that high a body count.

The protagonist can't be more unlikable, it tries to sound like a philosopher, but ends up sounding like my frustrated literature teacher: complaining about everything but failing to produce good lines himself.

Many Latin-American film makers try to capitalize on the stereotype that their country is violent and dangerous. This way, they comply with the foreign moviegoers' expectancies, and fool many critics who pass this implausibility as realism.

Moreover, local moviegoers over-praise any movie that comes out of their homeland. I wouldn't be surprised if the current 7.0 score is due to 1000 colombians giving it a ten.

The plot is not simple, it is subtle. While watching Kagemusha your subconscious receives more information through photography, actor expressions and simple situations than from story-line.

Nakadai's acting is spell-bounding, the scene where he portrays the 'sad look' of the impersonated one is, to me, one of cinema's most fascinating character shots. Oh man! How much can you convey with one look!

I would like to read more comments describing individual scenes of Kagemusha, it is there where this movie greatness resides.

In 1960 there was a far better french movie made from the novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley"; it's called "Plein Soleil" or sometimes "Purple Noon", it starred a young Alain Delon and other french actors. It is much more disturbing and believable than the film on this page. I don't understand why filmmakers think they will have a critical success with remakes, when they know that critics can compare the two films, and find that somehow the original is always better?

I recommend you to type "Plein Soleil" in the search box and begin to be interested in a great psychological thriller, and a triumph in character analysis.

And to american screen writers: stop giving opportunities for the french to feel superior!

Being from Ecuador I find this film an insult to my country's people. I feel outraged at how Rodents portrays Ecuadorians in an unrealistic, shallow way. The characters are awfully underdeveloped, they have no history, no personality, they are just stereotypes, dummies with no morals or spirit, each and every one of them exists only to give birth to a new incoherent plot element.

For instance, when the writer was in need of an epilepsy attack he created an empty young man from Quito's poorest corners. No compassion for him, no real drama in him, the writer uses the kid only to contrast with his favorite characters. There are thousands of deep dramas in the life of a 'serrano' young person who strives amongst poverty and family disapproval, none of them is richly portrayed here. Oh, but there is epilepsy!

The film looses itself in too many plot lines, all of them confusing and incoherent, it has dozens of characters, and no focus in any of them. The result is simply unreal.

Another example of the shallowness of the script is the protagonist (if there is any), the robber from Guayaquil. He carries all the wrong attitudes that can exist within a desperate person, but then again, we don't see desperation, lack of alternatives or suffering, not to the extent that can justify killing or abandoning friends.

The entire plot is non-existent, just ask yourself after seeing this movie, what was the storyline? where was the climax? did any drama develop throughout the movie? I don't mean general ideas, like "this is a description of the drama within the different social classes of Ecuador". A compelling movie is one that tells us a concrete story to exemplify it's point, Rodents is a spaghetti of situations which occur in too short a span of time to be believable.

If you wish you can disregard all my film criticism, may be I am wrong and the film is pure art. But there's only one point that I ask you to consider: Please don't judge us by this movie, Ecuador is not a rat-hole, the vast majority of our poor people literally starve to death or illness, yet very few of them even think about robbing or killing. As I write this, my country is living one of it's most difficult moments in it's entire history; 'dolarización' seems to come as the last blow to an already dying economy, it seems to me that the least we can do is not to lie about our people, and less with an awful, vapid movie.

...I would like to be a texan from the time when that 'Picture' was last shown.

There's something about american culture of the fifties that feels like a dream that's gone. A soda bar, a beautiful blond girl, a remembrance of a lake and a lost love. I wish I could set apart all those action movies and dream I am an american from that gone-forever time.