Sunday, October 9, 2011

Mal día para pescar

♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

Jacob Van Oppen (Jouko Ahola) is a German ex-world wrestling champion whose career is reduced into some kind of joke touring Latin American cities in an effort to regain his former glory after being stripped off a world title. Principe Orsini (Gary Piquer) is his only family. Though not related to him by blood, he is the one who manages the fighter's career and comes up with all the gimmicks for his comeback. Their latest project is the city of Santa Maria, Uruguay where they hype up the event by offering a thousand US dollars to anyone who can last three minutes with Van Oppen in the ring. Unbeknownst to many, the fighter is sick and there really is no money.

What Orsini does is find a local fighter who has become the resident drunkard, for a sure win. Unfortunately he gets nabbed by the police for some drinking related incident. Just in time, a persistent woman volunteers her Turkish boyfriend, a guy known as "Matador" popular for shaving someone's ears a few years back. Things suddenly start to look gloomy for Orsini. He knows they are going to lose. Will they be riding the early morning bus out of the city, or are they going to fight until the end?

This film really bored me because I am not a big fan of wrestling, not to mention it was hard watching a bulky guy doing ridiculous stuff like lifting bath tubs, tractor wheels, and jumping rope on a stage. The whole thing looks absurd and I was about to give the movie just three clovers. But then I realized, this movie does something worth praising. It gives you a poignant account of one human trait and an ever persisting value that comes with it: Desperation and Hope.

Everyone gets into a tight situation once in a while and it is always a pleasant surprise when you find the way out of a complete mess you have created for yourself, even when it seems like you deserve all the repercussions of your stupid actions. For this movie I feel glad somehow for the fighter. He might act like a weirdo but he does a perfect job demonstrating perseverance, which we could say is possible because of hope. Orsini, on the contrary, couldn't have displayed desperation in a more believable manner. Together, this pair forms a good partnership no matter how dysfunctional it seems to be.

I do not know what the point of the movie is. What I wrote above are all that came to mind after reflecting about it for a while. If you have another interpretation, I would be glad to read it. The movie is funny at some points and boring in some parts.

Or maybe it is all about pushing one's luck? Besides, the title says it all. If you are out of luck, don't go fishing. Anyway I will stop here so as not to spoil anything. In terms of plot, the movie starts with an accident at the Apollo Theater with someone ending up in critical condition at the hospital, before going back a few days earlier to narrate the rest of the story. This is really not a spoiler. I just gave you a heads-up about the first scene, without revealing anything else. Or should I spoil it? Besides, there's no next time since today was the only scheduled screening. Nah, let Google do that for you.

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