Rating: 
Summary: This movie delivers on many levels
Review: I recently purchased and viewed this movie. I found it to be quite an enjoyable film. It moves well it is well directed the acting is top notch in my opinion.The movie is filmed in an almost soap opraish lighting scheme but neither this nor the english subtitles detracted from the film in any way.This movie will make you laugh in places you do not think you should. Itis also very moving at times.Itis a movie about imparting wisdom from the old school to the new generation of the brave new frightening world.the relationship between the older man and the young man seems as natural as breathing itself. they seem to have been able to find true commitment to each other in a world of hatred and constant squabble.There is a twist near the end of the film that will leave you wondering how it can continue but even this possibly greavous obstacle is conquered by the power of love and faith.You will not be dissapointed in this movie.It can be had for a rather small price.what you will receive is a true delight of a movie that works on many levels, enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: True Love
Review: In one word: GREAT. I loved the movie for it is reality look on life. I have many Colombian friends who suggested me to watch this movie. I've never been, sadly enough, been to Colombian (I hope to plan that somewhere in the future). But this movie really gave me the feeling that I got a good look inside the life of Colombians. And although it is hard, raw and (therefore?) more real then some might can handle, I thought there was also a gentle touch in their. A romantic kind. That that romance must be between two boys with a big age difference must not bother anyone. It happens, the age differences and the gay stuff. I know it is illegal in some countries to have that kind of an age difference or even a relationship between two men, or women. But the movie is not about what is right or wrong, good or bad, normal or not normal, legal or illegal... it is about life and how it is been experienced. And moreover, how the reality is of love (which isn't always between the guidelines of law and morality).
Rating:
Summary: A stupendous movie for a specific audience ....
Review: Every now and then a movie comes out that most certainly prompts a visceral response from viewers ....some are astounded and awed, while others are disgusted and angry to have sat through the film.... well, this is one of them and it should have come with a warning label. First, if a homsexual love affair of two men grosses you out, then DO NOT buy this film, second, if real life exploration of what can only be described as an urban war zone of a society in extreme trouble, again this isn't the DVD for you ....
On the other hand, if you are a Colombian or have Colombian friends and perhaps maybe have visited Medellin, then this is one fabulous picture. The homosexual aspect of this movie is actually quite tangential in that it allows the director a vehicle to tell his story of life on the streets of Medellin for the teenage assassins running amok within the city and society ...
The movie starts with a 50'ish author, Fernando, after some years abscence, returning to Medellin so that he can die in his natal city. Fernando is a highly educated man, with an intimate and complete knowledge of the history of the city and with a taste for young teenaged boys. The actual sex scenes in the film are few and relatively discretely filmed. (...for the squeamish you can just close your eyes for a few seconds or so...) These relationships are not gratuitous sex and are important to the story since Fernando must form a very deep bond with the young assissins to be able to move freely among them. Along the same lines, the fact that moral values are pracically non existent among these young killers will not escape the viewer.
The absolute wonder of this fabulous film is the real life, and I mean, real life, portayal of the lives of these young killers walking among the population of the city. Naturally a policeman is nowhere to be found since these people live by another set of rules and are all pretty well desensitized to violent deaths of their friends, families and themselves.... If you know the city of Medllin at all you will swear that you are walking the streets with Fernando and Alexis, his young lover...
The DVD is pretty simple with very little extras, it is of course in Spanish with English subtitles. For Spanish speaking people you will immediately realize that the subtitles do not give breadth and depth to the actual dialogue but the translation is about as good as it can get when dealing with a rich language like Spanish .... The movie does have digital Dolby 5.1 and the video is clear cut and crisp since it was filmed by a video camera and not a movie camera which has a tendency to soften the images of the final movie. This crispness does not take away from the movie but rather enhances the breathtaking real life aspect ....
Certainly this movie will leave an impression on the viewer and you will have no problem remembering the movie, the actors and also the city of Medellin and Colombia. The director does not in any way have a hidden agenda (rare in today's world of Micheal Moores crockumentaries) and he sticks to the main theme of the film exploring the life and times of these little killers among us.
On a final note the VHS versions sell super cheap and are probably a much better deal for this film on Amazon than the DVD version ....
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother...
Review: A poorly made video (no, not a film -- it was shot on video) depicting an older man who meanders meaninglessly from boy to boy. The cover jacket suggested a different kind of movie, and I was shocked by the content. Also shocked by the cheapness of the production values. A serious waste of time, money, and videotape.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ON THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Wow. That's basically all I can think of to say. Wow. Yeah, this is THE worst film that I've ever seen. Actually, I'm not even sure if I can classify it as such, because I couldn't actually force myself to watch the whole thing. First of all, the movie looks like it was homemade. The film quality is like that of a soap opera, which, to tell the truth was almost more than I could handle in the first place (and very, very rarely is film quality something that I even think about when I watch a movie). Secondly, as other reviewers have mentioned, the plot and the script are pathetic. I really cannot express how horrible this movie was. Also, on a personal note, I was really bothered by the fact that the main character who appeared to be in his fifties or sixties has two "deep" romantic relationships with two boys who must be in their teens. I know that this might not bother anyone else, but personally it really grosses me out (because of the age difference (it's be illegal in the US)not because they're gay). Anyway, that aside, the point is to avoid this movie at all costs
Rating:
Summary: Watch it...AGAIN !
Review: This is an extremely powerful movie, but it's not really a 'gay' love story despite the assertions of the other reviewers, who misunderstand completely the real nature of the relationship between Fernando, the central character, and his beautiful teen-aged lover, Alexis.
No, this is a powerful movie about despair. After all, if you deny any salvation, you must repeat the hopelessness of everything, make hopelessness inevitable.
The central character, Fernando relentlessly embodies a spirit of negativity towards absolutely everything - even his young male lovers are assassins. The youth and innocence of Alexis is merely the foil against which Fernando's obsessive depression plays itself out.
Step by step Fernando exposes his young lover Alexis to the death to which that boy is destined. It is a strange "being hatefully in love," Alexis'lines has it. Fernando becomes this ill-starred boys' codependent as, time and again, he does nothing to avert the youngster's fate, and everything to practically provoke the inevitable. Fernando, in his own rejection of hope, is as much a death-bringer as his young assassins, whatever his protestations.
Considering the director's last name (Schroder) it's no surprise that we find a literary allusion from the director's own ethnic background. In Goethe's Faust the Satanic emissary, Mephistopheles, is memorialized as " "Der Geist der ewig verneint," the Spirit which forever denies, and that's certainly Fernando.
The proof of my guess at a literary background for the film is Fernando's reminiscence that in childhood he had a family parrot named Fausto. There it is, Goethe's great work, and the key to Fernando's unwittingly Mephistophelian character.
Fernando's despair is less than his own "negation" of all trust, all hope. He's in despair of himself, and, in that, I suppose, serves as a metaphor for the nation of Columbia, with it's corruption and violence.
Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist, recently pointed out that in the Latin American character there is a profound distrust of all social institutions, that spirit of negation which undermines their social progress, even as people struggle to make their government work. On one hand there's passionate self-sacrifice, as even like young Alexis who throws himself in front of Fernando to save him from the gang's bullets. On the other, a profound mistrust of everything that might work, as embodied in the character of Fernando. No accident, that the film is replete with themes of faith and utter doubt, salvation and slaughter in one character.
Fernando's despair is obvious, but what's truer and beneath the surface is his fatal negation of anything that might relieve his despair. Inevitably he loses one boy whom he makes no effort to save, and, when he's offered a second chance, tries to save another when it's too late. So much of Latin America has something of this at work in it - those themes of love and death get handled with quite some consistency in those somber films.
The predecessor of this film, by the way, is "Rodrigo D", a cinema verite treatment of the youngsters' gang battles in Colombia in the eighties. By the time the film was ready for release, seven of its twenty "street boy" actors were dead through that senseless, inevitable violence.
Rating: 
Summary: believe it or not, its real
Review: i have read so many reviews of this movie saying "it's too fake, the violence is unconvincing."i am a colombian who has experienced gang violence and crime. what people do not understand is that colombia is not compton, where the police come and record a crime. here are some facts less than 3% of crimes in colombia are successfully prosecuted, a rate lower than that of the old west, a time and place taht was supposedly lawless the murder rate in medellin (the city where the movie is set, where my family lives), including rich neighborhoods and slums is 465 per 100,000, compton, california (the birthplace of gang violence in the US and home of gangsta rap) was only 80.2 per 100,000 in 1987 (when things were supposedly much worse) as far as the filmmaking itself, i cannot say it si a well made movie, my interest is solely in teh subject matter the homosexuality adds a confusing dimension to the film that is not necessary when portraying violent crime in the most dangerous place in the western hemisphere RENT, DO NOT BUY and yes, the violence is real, contrary to what you may think living in the suburbs, medellin is the most murderous city in the world, 6 times as murderous as compton, california
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