Reviews

I hope no one ever paid to see this movie in a theater. By all measurements, this has to be the absolute worst movie I have seen in my life both from a technical standpoint as well as (bad) acting and the (uneven)story line. The sound quality is terrible, the music isn't synchronized, the camera angles are childish, even the color is poor. Scenes fade to black at numerous points although they don't even punctuate the story properly. You can't empathize with any of the characters. There is no suspense, although this is called a "thriller." This film is so childishly done, it is not worth watching. I rented this from Netflix and every single viewer rated it ONE, although several said it should have been rated ZERO. Do not waste your time.

Fascinating look at the events leading up to the grounding of Swissair in October 2001. The first part of the film is a documentary with the real people, then the story starts with actors. It makes the grounding personal by interweaving the impact on a family where both parents work for the airline. It is convincing, but friends in Switzerland tell me the film angers them because they feel the grounding could have been avoided. The problem here for American viewers is the film is presented in German (or French and Italian, the languages of the country) and with subtitles in the same. No English option. Perhaps if it is distributed in the US they'll add an English track or titles.

Most modern Argentine movies are of dark, sad topics. This one is not quite a comedy, but not melodramatic either. Instead it is a pleasant film about family relationships. Father and son are attorneys in Buenos Aires but the son has never worked with his dad, although the father's office had a room for him. Instead he is a creative university professor of law, and meets his future wife there. When the son becomes a father himself, he takes stock of his life and realizes there is more to it than work. The movie is entertaining, but simple, and well acted. It hasn't yet been released in the US, but I saw it in Buenos Aires and English subtitles were available on the DVD.

This movie has apparently not been released in the US, but I found it available on DVD in Beijing, of all places. It takes place during the war in the ghetto in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania and shows the brutality of war, with a Nazi leader forcing Jews to perform as actors, and using the Jewish police to carry out orders. It is somewhat melodramatic with some comedic elements, but overwhelmingly brutal. I don't know is this is based on a true story or fictional. The acting was generally good, with some high and low points. There have been better holocaust films, but as one of the genre, this one is not too bad. The film was in English, but was likely dubbed. Amazingly it was a Lithuanian-German production, which in itself is somewhat ground breaking.

Muy impresionante. In the US this would be a "Dateline NBC" or "60 minutes" kind of film, but Pineyro (who starred and directed in the semi-autobiographical "Whisky, Tango, Zulu" about being a whistle blower in the badly run airline LAPA) creates a chilling scenario of the poor state of Argentina's civil aviation, and puts the blame on the Air Force. He claims it is the only country in the world in which the air force has this control. Two days after the film came out, the government announced major changes and took the points made in the film constructively. Pineyro convincingly tells the story himself, with diagrams, interviews, hidden cameras, and a few props (he spills out a bag of plastic airplanes and equates it to the number of planes the air force has lost). Not a glossy, high budget film (Argentine films generally aren't), but clearly a film that makes a clear statement and is having its impact felt throughout the entire country. Bravo, Enrique.

Although I give the director (and lead actor) Enrique Pineyro some creative license to include a "love interest," this is an engrossing and shocking film that exposes a real airline run by the Argentine air force (LAPA, and thank god they are no longer around) that sacrifices safety in order to save money and look good. The result of their mismanagement and flagrant disregard for safety, maintenance, and their pilots themselves was the fatal crash in 1999 on a street just a few feet from the downtown Buenos Aires airport. Filmed realistically on location, the film tells the story of a "whistle-blower" pilot (played by Pineyro himself, who was actually once a LAPA pilot)who won't compromise on safety but it mortified by what he is told to do and cover up. Pineyro's second film, "Fuerza Aerea S.A." (which I saw yesterday) is a sort of a sequel, but a documentary that deals with the problem of the air force overseeing civil aviation in Argentina. Both films have caused quite a stir and is equally chilling. Last night I read that this is being changed, directly because of Pineyro's film. Both are well worth watching, but unfortunately not released in the US yet. Highly recommended.