Heroes Y Demonios

Rating:
Summary: A Frighteningly Powerful and Timely Statement
Review: Director Horacio Maldonado and his Argentinean crew have produced a film that is not only a fast-paced action movie, but it also an immensely important meditation on the difference between political activism and terrorism. And if ever there were a time when we need to examine the differences between these two responses, it is now! Maldonado uses the metaphor of a Psychiatric Hospital as the foundation for the creation of two dichotomous characters. Both are mental patients but for different reasons: Sergio (Federico D'Elia) is an obsessive-compulsive computer fanatic who is deeply concerned with the lack of respect for human rights shown the patients surrounding him in the hospital. Enter Gabriel (the extraordinarily talented Pablo Echarri who continues his "Burnt Money" impression as one of Argentina's best young actors), a street person left to survive after his mother's death from cancer and unable to avoid the police because of his violent outbursts and madness. Gabriel becomes a patient under the care of the psychiatrist Dr. Pena (Nacha Guevaara) and sheds his street filth for hospital clothes but remains mute and grossly disturbed. Sergio befriends Gabriel and also finds the support of his other fellow inmates, believing that he and his friends, upon release, can change society and fight for LOS DERECHOS NO SE NEGOCIAN ("Rights are not negotiable"). Three years later they all have been released and Sergio is a political activist with brains who is under investigation by the Director of Security (Villanueva Cosse) who has appointed the specialist Jorge Romano (Hector Alterio, another of Argentina's most respected actors) to find the identity of those who are infiltrating the media and the government with the slogan "Los Derechos no se Negocian". Another downtrodden victim of society, Marina (Andrea Pietra), by chance comes to live with Sergio and thus is involved with the movement. How this struggle between the government and the activists (and in Gabriel's case, the terrorists, as Gabriel's violent nature sees only death as a means to an end) is the potent resolution to this tense and disturbing film..

It is rare when a film can make such important statements and still remain a credible and finely tuned drama, and it is to the credit of Horacio Maldonado that he has the courage to bring this story to the attention of the world. An important and very fine movie.