WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
First, the Recap:
Criminality. Isn’t it fun? Just think–being involved with shady characters, living the dangerous yet exhilarating high life, have loads of money, drugs, guns, partying, women. Yeah, it’s all the rage. I mean, what could go wrong–right? After all, doesn’t the luster of it all last forever? In the city of Montecastro, the lords of crime reside with impunity and relatively unchallenged dominance. Don Carlos (Emiliano Garcia Blaya) fights an ongoing war against the invasive Czech Mafia lead by Musano (Agustin Musano) and his ruthless, vengeance-minded, greedy enforcer Jakub (Jakub Sanko de Ruiz). Caught right in the middle of it all, however, is equally shady, weasely lawyer Dr. Curtino (Martin Cutino) and his best friend Diego (Diego Romero) who might just find associating with bad people just leads to things going–badly.
Next, my Mind:
It’s dark, definitively quirky, deeply eccentric, often times over-the-top wacky, while other times enigmatic and just plain outlandishly offbeat. Hence, this critic would say it’s certainly why this 72-minute indie feature film from writer/director/executive producer Julian Reboratti, producers Lorena Rodriguez and Agustin Goitia, plus executive producers Patricia Iujvidin and Tito Faivovich found itself perfectly comfortable and welcome when it screened as part of the 2020 Berlin Revolution Film Festival. Crime thrillers took on a whole new meaning with this witty, obscure offering that in many ways defies conventional description.
While the crime genre overall is a more than addressed thematic exploration within any community and level of filmmaking and filmmakers, this takes those base concepts right from the start and struts its indie cinema stuff boldly and unapologetically, allowing the raw nature of its execution to win you over along with its ensemble of just strangely–lovable?–characters whose criminal minds and sometimes violence-heavy manners are somehow tainted by what really amounts to an total dysfunction in exactly how they’re supposed to be furthering their goals while people within their own circles might be working against them for their own purposes.
This too is a somewhat common theme in the style of narrative presented, but again, here it’s more played for darkly comical intent. In a foundational sense, one could almost see this as a de facto sequel to Reboratti’s 2017 effort “Montecastro” (same city and at least one or two crossover characters to boot) which I reviewed here from the then 2018 Berlin Liberi Film Festival, though that effort took on a much more serious tone while this one follows the comedy path, albeit via its unorthodox approach. It almost brings to mind the type of farcical/satirical material often found in British efforts, where you’re laughing at its absurdity, yet don’t always necessarily know why other than its just plain fun and hard to take any other way but NOT seriously.
The heavy amounts of profanity and mob film-related violence are all present here, the language more so wore on me a little throughout as overt amounts of it usually do. But again, so much of it is purposefully overblown and hence seems more hilarious than menacing or offensive. Everyone’s trying to live “the life”, and it’s how they go about it that makes the story run successfully like it does, with all of them really caricatures of every shady person you’ve ever seen in gangster films, amped up to be goofy and entertaining in their proclivities rather than ominous and evil. What really strikes me is that underneath it all, by the film’s finale, there could be some serious moral lessons taken from it, and perhaps that once again reflects the beauty of indie cinema once more.
It’s a sizable ensemble cast that pulls this all off, and does it with a wonderfully flamboyant style even when their characters are being “serious”. Cutino plays Dr. Curtino, a completely corrupt lawyer with some really bad habits and making worse choices because of them, with playfully sniveling panache and chuckle-inducing bravado. Blaya is likewise a hoot as Don Carlos, a mob boss whose in control yet not, and whose overtly evident power-trip attitude makes for some interesting moments throughout, whether for good or ill towards those on the receiving end of his “mercies”, with Blaya looking and acting the part perfectly. Romero shines as Diego, a failed clown and best pal to Dr. Curtino who has a more than cavalier outlook on life and everything he believes he deserves in a realm of crime, potentially his undoing.
Musan is deliciously vile as Czech mob boss Musano, whose own levels of greed and ambition could upend the status quo in Montecastro. This aim is aided through his main enforcer Jakub, played with oh so much exaggerated pizazz by de Ruiz, who has his own agendas in play to elevate his position and needed excesses. Nacho Ritrovatto brings to excellently played life El Nacho, Don Carlos’ mean-streak-on-two-legs-beat-the-$@&%-out-of-everyone grandson who certainly proves that if anyone is asking to be knocked off, it’s him. Juan Erlich hilariously plays former orthodox Jew Camilo Pijerman who’s strayed FAR from the flock in running the town’s brothel–and being a D.J..
Supporting turns arrive from Luciano Carlos Russo as local drug supplier El Chileno, along with Daniel Polo, Patrício Garcia Blaya, Leandro Valcarce, Carlos Imaz, Facundo Ortiz, and Franco Vilche among others. So, in total, “Curtino Bros” is one wildly oddball ride into the world of mob politics, poor choices, deep consequences, and fully rediculous antics that serves to remind us that not every film about crime needs to be heavily dramatic to be worth taking a look at or, for that matter, to just be simple, escapist gratification with a madcap twist!
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
