Rating: 
Summary: The Delirious World of Angel, El Nene and El Cuervo
Review: "Burnt Money" (Plata Quemada) is a dizzy, surrealistic, hyper-realistic heist movie set in the Argentina and Uraguay of the 1960's and filled with period touches that may or may not correspond to the particular era it seeks to reproduce: the twist, 50's style American automobiles, Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Susie Q," Question Mark and the Mysterian's "Land of a 1000 dances" ("I said a Nah nah nah na na..do you know how to pony?..like boney...maroni") and Billie Holiday's "Lady in Satin" to name just a few. Angel (Eduardo Noriega), El Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and El Cuervo (Pablo Echarri) are the youngest and most attractive members of a gang who rob a government agency of 7 million dollars. And as with most heist films this is only the beginning of the gang's problems: where to hide, where to stash the money, what to do about the voices that Angel hears calling him to save his seed for a higher cause and what to do with Nene's unrequited need for Angel. Nene and Angel are erstwhile lovers who met in a public restroom and, because they are never apart and only work together, are known as the "twins."
By itself, the Twins' relationship is as stormy, weird and sexually explicit as most couples' but in the bigger context, as part of a team of hetero men, professional white collar thieves, it is unusual. And this is one of the things that makes this film reverberate and hold your interest as most of the other members of the team put up with Angel and Nene because they are good at what they do, i.e. they're ruthless, fearless killers and expert burglars . Cuervo is the comic of the bunch and spends a lot of his time joshing with Angel and Nene and trying to score with girls. One scene has him twisting on the beach with bikini clad girls a la "Beach Blanket Bingo." Hilarious.
Marcelo Pineyro brews up this cauldorn of disparate characters into a bloody and guts-filled stew of double crossing, shoot outs with the police and ultimately an almost saint-like immolation ending. Pineyro has obviously been watching a lot of 50's and 60's American melodramas like "Point Blank," "Written on the Wind," and "Magniificent Obsession." But unlike those films, "Burnt Money" is a sweaty, in-your-face, violence filled car chase of a movie. More "Bonnie and Clyde" than "Chinatown." "Burnt Money" runs on too long for it's own good but this is a minor quibble about a first-rate film. See it to believe it.
Rating: 
Summary: 5 Stars and then some!!!
Review: A masterpiece of a movie. Emocional, compelling and spectacular.
A must buy...
Rating:
Summary: Response to IntrepidVoyager's comment
Review: A response to IntrepidVoyager's stupidity: What the hell is "nothing more than a gay movie" supposed to mean -- that it's somehow less than a real movie, and therefore not worth watching??? That's the same as saying that a gay man is less than a real man, isn't it? It's attitudes like yours that make the world SUCK!
And I happen to think the movie was great!
Rating:
Summary: Burnt Lives
Review: Argentina, 1965. A heist goes wrong. Three men are on the run looking for a place to hide. They find it in Montevideo, they need false passports to leave so they wait day after day until the police come and everything goes apocalyptic.The bare facts. But the real movie is about the two killers in the gang, El Nene and Angel, called Los Mellizos (the twins). They are not related. They are lovers: two fugitives sharing loneliness and pain, living their lives on the edge. It's the story of a doomed relationship, confined into four rooms where intense passion and violence push the extremes. In their hostile world of drugs, cheap sex, prejudice and revenge they have to deal with a feeling born from repression and the fear of naming it. There is, above all, their desperate search for love and loyalty that makes them some kind of tragic heroes in the end. Seldom has cinema faced the subject of masculine desire and affection in such a natural, honest and even tender way. For sure a different sight of an action movie and a remarkable piece of acting. Worth seeing.
Rating: 
Summary: genuina "plata quemada..."
Review: Artificiosa, boba, absurda y supuestamente "avant-garde", Plata quemada hace honor a su nombre. Es dinero desperdiciado de la peor manera. Sin embargo, le encantará a todos aquellos que ven "arte" en las vaguedades artificiosas de muchos filmes latinoamericanos como "Y tu mamá también". Un total desperdicio de tiempo y dinero. Silly, affected and absurd, this suppossedly "avant-garde" film, honors its title. Nevertheless I'm sure it'll delight the usual non-spanish speaking viewers who love "artsy" and vague latin-american trash films such as "Y tu mama también". Burnt money is just that: a total waste of money (and time).
Rating:
Summary: over-rated as a sensual gay movie
Review: Based on the reviews, I thought this foreign, Spanish-speaking
movie was going to have more realistic, sexually-explicit
gay scenes among the attractive main male characters. Instead
you will find that all the hot sex was between the supporting
actor and actress in this movie. In such movies where the actors
are supposed to be gay and involved in a steamy, amorous
relationship yet fail to show any evidence of one existing (while the straight couples are going at it like rabbits) makes you wonder if the actors or director is a bit homophobic or afraid of what gay sexually-explicit scenes could do to the
movie's ratings and/or actors' careers. Needless to say, I felt
a bit disheartened and misled. Hats off to Y Tu Mama Tambien for
being [braver]!!
Rating:
Summary: Spanish heartthrobs topline true-crime drama
Review: BURNT MONEY (Plata Quemada, 2000): Argentina, 1965. Following a botched robbery on an armored car, during which they stole money belonging to a corrupt police officer, two gay lovers - rebellious rich kid Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and borderline schizophrenic Angel (Eduardo Noriega) - are forced to flee with their accomplices to Uruguay where they take refuge in a decaying apartment building. Continually denied sexual favors by Angel due to his worsening mental condition, Nene takes up with a sympathetic prostitute (Leticia Bredice), leading to jealousy, betrayal and tragedy... Based on a non-fiction novel by Argentinian writer/critic Ricardo Piglia, and directed by Marcelo Pineyro (a former producer whose film career was kickstarted in 1985 by Luis Puenzo's acclaimed drama THE OFFICIAL STORY [La Historia Oficial]), BURNT MONEY is an unexpected masterpiece. Photographed with noirish intensity by Alfredo Mayo (HIGH HEELS [Tacones Lejanos]) and underscored by an ironic soundtrack of lazy jazz and contemporary English/Spanish pop songs, the narrative is driven by powerful emotions (sexual and otherwise), and when the highly strung characters finally react against their unhappy circumstances, the resulting violence is bleak and uncompromising, and the sex scenes are equally graphic. The sacred and profane are interlinked in various ways (one extraordinary sequence cross-cuts between an act of worship in a Uruguayan church and an unpleasant encounter between Nene and a frightened youth in a public toilet), and the sweaty atmosphere is broken only by an explosive climax where the main protagonists are forced to take responsibility for their actions. Former TV actor Pablo Echarri ("Chiquititas", "El Signo", etc.) plays a younger, headstrong member of the outlaw gang, blinded by youthful arrogance to the danger in which they have all become enmeshed, while Bredice (NINE QUEENS [Nueve Reinas]) plays one of the few significant female characters in this otherwise all-male scenario, a brittle creature unable to prevent herself falling in love with the wrong guy, with appalling consequences for everyone. More than anything else, however, BURNT MONEY is a love story, played to perfection by two of the finest young actors of their generation. Spanish heartthrob Eduardo Noriega forged his career in popular mainstream entries such as THESIS [Tesis], OPEN YOUR EYES [Abre los Ojos] and THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE [El Espinazo del Diablo], while Leonardo Sbaragalia made a name for himself in his native Argentina, where he worked with Pineyro on a number of lesser-known productions (TANGO FEROZ LA LEYENDA DE TANGUITO, CABALLOS SALVAJES). Casting these two beautiful, experienced young men as lovers in a violent true-crime drama could not have been more fortuitous: Their devotions are rarely consummated on-screen (all of the aforementioned sex scenes are heterosexual), except for a chaste kiss at the end of the film, and an earlier, erotically-charged sequence in which Nene tends to a wound on Angel's shoulder and initiates a sexual advance, only to be rebuffed because of Angel's mental condition. And yet, Noriega and Sbaraglia are ultra-convincing as the macho thugs who would literally die for one another, and they invest every gesture, every inflection, with genuine romantic chemistry. These guys simply burn up the screen! Look out for the devastating sequence in which Nene 'confesses' to Bredice about his relationship with Angel, where he describes their mutual affection with heartbreaking emotional candor. But these characters are also drug-takers and ruthless killers, and Pineyro refuses to soft-pedal their capacity for evil, which may divide some viewers unable to reconcile such a cruel dichotomy. However, the climactic sequence simply reinforces Pineyro's true objectives: For all its dramatic fireworks and sexual tension, BURNT MONEY is a story of undying love, as touching and beautiful as any this reviewer has ever seen. They may be thieves and murderers, but when Nene looks into Angel's eyes, you know instinctively that their love transcends life and death, and is destined to last an eternity. Strand Releasing's all-region DVD - which runs 124m 40s - is a bit of a mixed bag. The picture is letterboxed at 1.85:1 (anamorphically enhanced), and is both detailed and vivid. The optional English subtitles are superb, and a trailer has been included. However, the theatrical 5.1 digital soundtrack has been downmixed to 2.0 stereo for this DVD release, and while the results are entirely serviceable, it doesn't represent the original theatrical experience. So, five stars for the movie, four for the DVD, I'm afraid. But don't let that put you off! Not just a great gay film, BURNT MONEY is also a terrific love story, a heartstopping thriller, and an outstanding example of the recent upsurge in popular Spanish entertainment. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Sophisticated, erotic, exciting masterpiece of a film
Review: BURNT MONEY is another film from Argentina that places that country in the forefront of exemplary film making. After viewing this compelling movie of a retelling of a bank heist that occurred in Buenos Aires in 1965 one wonders why Hollywood has so much difficulty presenting credible and sensual male/male relationships. The chief characters in this story are two lovers (played to perfection by Leonardo Sbaraglia as 'Nene' and Eduardo Noriega II as 'Angel') who, known as The Twins, are hired to assist in a heist. This event occurs at the very beginning of this two hour film, leaving the rest of the movie to explore the intricate relationship between the lovers as they elude the law in their flight to Uruguay. The physical passion between thes two men is palable, erotic, and as profound as any love story to hit the screen. When the stress of the life of hiding drives Angel to focus on the 'voices' in his head, his physical withdrawal sends Nene outside the relationship to satisfy his sexual needs. One of these encounters is with a woman he meets in a bar and results in a confessional talk about his gayness and ultimately ends up in one of the most sensuously graphic sexual scenes since "Last Tango In Paris". Yes, in this story that is focused on a gay relationship, the sexual encounters filmed are heterosexual ones and very well filmed at that. The physical relationship between Nene and Angel is far less graphic and yet far more sensual for being so. Would that Hollywood could make gay characters so wholly three dimensional as Director Marcelo Pineyro does! The supporting cast includes more beautiful people than Sbaraglia and Noriega: Leticia Bredice and Dolores Fonzi play the sexy female roles and there is a cameo by cabaret singer Adriana Varela whose luminously sexual singing focuses the sensuality of this story completely. Well written, well photographed and well directed, BURNT MONEY starts on a high note and just gathers momentum right to the devastating climax. A superb film.
Rating:
Summary: Partners in crime and love! 6 stars out of 5...
Review: BURNT MONEY is based on a true story of a bank robbery that took place some 40 years ago in South America. This film will enthrall you from beginning to end: I cannot wait for the DVD release! Starring Eduardo Noriega (also seen this year in The Devil's Backbone, which I also recommend very highly) who commands every scene with his intense gaze and sensuality. He is not unlike a young Marlon Brando or Montgomery Clift in the way his eyes hold your attention. On a equal level of intensity and very fine acting is Leonard Sbaraglia who plays lover and criminal partner. The relationship between the two men goes far beyond a sexual or physical level. There is a strong emotional bond that only becomes more complex as their grip on their precarious sitation seems to get worse with every passing moment. If I explain this any further, it would give away too much of the plot. So, you'll have to catch this on video or DVD and see for yourself why I give this not five but SIX stars! One of the best plots of ANY movie I've seen this year. The casting of the principals is excellent, including the two young women who play the girlfriends of Angel and Nene. Not a dull moment to be found here. There's lots of character development, interaction, suspense and even heartbreak.
Rating:
Summary: A LESSON IN PASSION
Review: Burnt Money is possibly one of the most passionate films you'll ever see -- from the acting to direction and even editing -- hats off to this film and the open, honest approach taken by all. The film balances several genres at once -- it's a love story, taut psychological thriller and action movie at different turns. Words fail me in describing "Burnt Money" -- just see the film with little to no expectation and enjoy it....now....when is the DVD coming out?
|
