Rating: 
Summary: A good mvie about love and jealous
Review: It's quite interesting that if a gay movie is not shot in USA it is usually worth seeing. This movie is an example.
Leonardo Sbaraglia(Nene) and Eduardo Noreiga(Angel)are quite charming. But as I see this movie is just about love and jealous, doubt and trust. It can happen to both gay lovers and straight lovers. It's about desire, possesion and give up. The pace of this movie is a bit slow, but it does not make me feel bad.
I don't know if the director is a gay or not. All women characters in this movie are described as cunny and selfish. The director is a little mean to women characters in this movie. So if he is not a gay, understanding of this film will be more interesting.
Worth your time and money on this movie. Go get one, at least rent one.
Rating:
Summary: Routine Heist Film Disguises Great Love Story
Review: It's too bad that a special interest distribution company is hawking this movie, because even though the protagonist couple of the film are both men, the passionate love story that ensues is powerful enough to transcend its "gay" subplot. This is a movie that anyone who likes a romantic story about a love that manages to survive in the face of unbelievable adversity will enjoy. Based on an event that actually happened in Buenos Aires in 1965, a botched robbery and subsequent manhunt that lasted two months, it is reminiscent of the Charles Starkweather/Carol Fugate killing spree that happened in the USA in the late 50s/early 60s and paralyzed three states. The film starts with the meeting of the two hit men, in a public restroom. Within the first five minutes we know that Angel "hears voices" and that Nene falls madly in love with and determined to protect him. When Angel gets injured in the robbery and they hightail it out of Argentina, his voices warn him against losing his "sacred bodily fluids" and the subsequent abjection drives the hapless Nene out into the sordid night life, the flotsom and jetsom of Montevideo, for companionship. As the police make their inexorable way to the hiding robbers, it all builds to a heroic, passionate climax that's one of the most deliriously romantic resolutions in recent or, in fact, distant memory. This is all beside the fact that the three leads, Pablo Echarri, Leonardo Sbaraglia and Eduardo Noriega, are three of the most refreshingly handsome and talented young actors you'll probably see from any country. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! Film Noir ressurected and refreshed!
Review: remarkably edgy, based on a true story, and one I could watch again and again. The love story is firey and haunting while the seamy backdrop keeps every thing truly tense. The photography is incredible. This film easily ranks with the very best of the hard noir of the 1940's and 1950's. The director has created an amazing mood through this whole movie, and this film is easily one of the best 5 gay-themed movies ever made.
Rating:
Summary: Bonnie and Clyde, Meet Angel and Nene
Review: Repeat after me -- this is NOT 'just' a 'gay' film! Along with "Nine Queens," another recent Agentinian film, this film ranks as one of the best this year. The script, the camera work, the pacing -- everything is top quality. I won't repeat the plot -- the other reviews posted here describe it very well -- but suffice to say that it is that rare heist film that combines the expected action with a gripping character study and romance, all against a backdrop of endemic police and government corruption. Eduardo Noriega, as Angel (who hears voices and suffers terrible guilt over his sexuality), and Leonardo Sbaraglia, playing Nene and described by one critic as similar to a young Richard Gere only more overtly sexual, are mesmerizing, accomplished actors; they create one of the most passionate and convincing "troubled" relationships -- gay or straight -- you are likely to see on film. They were much more believable to me than saintly Jennifer Connelly standing by poor deluded Russell Crowe (no matter what) in the overrated "A Beautiful Mind." The director does a superb job of holding the film together, keeping the audience engaged each step of the way -- even though you think you know (as a matter of history) what will happen, the film keeps surprising you, right up to the end. As soon as you think you have figured it out, it takes an unexpected turn. It is too bad that it will be perceived as a 'gay film' just because the two leads are men who are in love with each other. The film transcends the genre as surely as the movie "Priest" did several years ago. In fact, the only real sex scenes in the film are between men and women (NOT between the two male leads, sorry Noriega fans!). I do not know why the film maker did not include such a scene between the leads, at least before Angel's voices tell him to stop -- perhaps Argentina is not ready and/or the actors were unwilling -- nonetheless, the love and tenderness captured between the two is so palpable, so intense, I did not consciously realize how coy the film was at depicting their relationship until after the film was over. Also interesting is the depiction of women in the film; despite the fact that the two main woman characters are also the only two actually shown to make a real intimate physical connection with two of the male characters, they are ultimately depicted as traitorous to our antiheroes and not to be trusted; in the end, the men have only each other. The end is sublimely romantic, and I swear owes a debt to "Bonnie and Clyde" and Michaelangelo.
Rating: 
Summary: Anything But Romantic!
Review: Sorry I can't share the sentiments of the other reviewers. Actually I bought this movie based on all the wonderful reviews and could not sit through the film! The most reviting part of this movie is the beautiful lead actor playing Angel. The story was very dull and slow moving. There is nothing erotic about the movie, however that was not the reason for me buying the film. I thought it was a gay romance against the backdrop of a heist which the movie does not deliver. The two actors are absolutely straight and are not at all convincing as gay lovers. I fell asleep twice trying to sit through it and fast forwarded to the end which is where (I suppose) the action to this melodrama lies and ended up sucking my teeth and turning off the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Great performance
Review: Superb and fearless performance.Electrifying chemistry between them.rent it and buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Burnt Money
Review: The tempo of the movie reminds me of that of Monsters Ball. I only saw this movie because of the director, but i am glad i did. Don't expecte to see hardcore porn in this film. There are only a few scences that barley qualifies a partial nudity, scense were do tastfully. The film is about some important power figures in Argentina who plot a risky heist and higher three men to do it. They end up killing 3 people to gain 7 million dollars, but in the process one gets shot, leaving a trail of evidence. Thus they are forced to flee to Uraguay, where they are on lock down to aviod anyone reconizing them. They hide out till thing cool down in Argentina. Mean while the main characters "Angel" and "Nene" are having problems. One is confused about his sexual identity, and his mental state of mind, while the other becomes frustrated. As a result he seeks comfort in a women he meets in Uraguay. In the end things fall apart, thier wear abouts are discoved, and make a run for it. conflicts arrise, identities and friendships are questioned, and tension rises. The ending is a bit much, but it works, and will leave you in awe.
Rating:
Summary: A Rare Find
Review: There is no need to recount the storyline; others have done that very well. The most revealing new comment I can add is that seeing this film on Sundance caused me to go out and buy not only the DVD, but my first DVD player as well. While the DVD is not up to the technical quality I expected, the production itself retains high values in terms of script, direction, and execution. It is the kind of film I start to watch thinking, "I'll just fast forward to all the high points once more," but wind up transfixed watching from bitter beginning to bitter end. Truly a masterpiece. I also bought the book that inspired the film. Because it has yet to be translated into English, I had to keep the dictionary nearby to augment my meager Spanish, and I found the book written stylistically very much in the vein of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Comparisons to films like Bonnie and Clyde, Thelma and Louise, or Reservoir Dogs are largely fragmentary and even inappropriate. Burnt Money (Plata Quemada) is nothing if not unique. Nor is the film documentary or just another love-action thriller. It is noirish, as others have noted, but it is at its center a classic tragedy as well, something Ricardo Piglia surely had in mind, replete with symbols, adumbrations, and a score of tragic flaws in the characters. My next step is to brush up on my Borges, followed by a couple of weeks in Buenos Aires to retrace the footsteps of the originals. Why not? I am deeply impressed by this story.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Fantastic Performances
Review: This film stands out as one of the most well acted films I have seen in a very long time. This is story telling at it's finest. I highly recommend this film to everyone. It's too bad that the film is marketed as a gay film because in reality the gay undertone is almost irrelavent. This is a love story, plain and simple and the performances are so powerful that you don't even think twice about the charectors being gay. A must see!
Rating:
Summary: In Spain we say "one of the decade's most important films"
Review: This film, original title "Plata Quemada", totally is a complete deal.
The gay magazine of Espana, Zero magazine, calls this movie one of the most important films of the past 10 years. It represents perhaps the next film in gay movies where "gayness" is not the end-all-be-all focus of the film (as is the case in gay movies made by Hollywood) A wonderfully acted film with plenty of action and a gripping story. Plata Quemada is the story of the 2 principal bank robbers, Nene and Angel, one from Argentina, the other from Spain. They are lovers. But this is not a "gay film" in that the gayness is not the focus of the story. But it is central to understanding the emotional impact that this film carries. Think "Bonnie and Clyde" but Bonnie is a beautiful sexy muscular latin man. Based on true events that took place in Argentina and Uruguay in 1965, it is about a bank robbery gone wrong. But it is also about the 4 main characters and how they relate to each other. Unlike american films where american actors (gay and straight) seem so wooden and artificial when they play gay characters (i.e. Interview with a vampire Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt) due to their own fear of seeming "too genuinely gay", Spain has a wonderful history of straight actors who make you believe the passion and love between two men. Law of Desire with the very young Antonio Banderas as un chico obsessed with his boyfriend was one. This is another. Leonardo Sbraglia and one of Spain's major hunks, (el chulo) Eduardo Noriega, draw you into the tortured lives of 2 men who are weird, unbalanced and.... love each other without limits. The end of the movie had me longing for a love that was as strong as what these men show on screen. If you like a great story with great emotional content, lots of action, beautiful beautiful men both latin (Pablo Echarri y Leonardo Sbraglia) and spanish (Noriega) and a message that will get to you straight gay or whatever, get this movie.
|
