| Reviewer Roundup |
| 1. |
 | Harvey Karten |
| review follows |
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| 2. |
| Steve Rhodes |
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Review by Harvey Karten
2½ stars out of 4
Luck is not usually a win-win situation. For example, if six
people are playing the roulette wheel and all six win, the house
loses. If most of the people in the casino are getting three lemons
lined up in a row and the coins are furiously dropping, once again
the house loses. One person's joy, then, is another's pain. So it
is with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's feature debut, "Intacto," in
English "Intact," implying that some people will remain intact
while others break apart. Think of Lindsay Anderson's "O Lucky
Man!", a 1973 British allegory about a young coffee salesman who
pushes his way to the top only to fall and rise again. But
Anderson's first-class parable, which featured some top
performances from Malcolm McDowell and Rachel Roberts, was
unpretentious. By contrast, "Intacto" may score high on visuals,
illustrating what tourists recall as the sunny playland of Spain's
island of Tenerife as a seedy chamber of noir, but the plot is
convoluted to the point of incomprehensibility. In fact if the
spectators go into the movie withpit a basic idea of its theme,
they would probably need a half hour or so to adjust to the
concepts of Fresnadillo and Andres M. Koppel's murky story.
Thematically, Fresnadillo cannot be faulted for taking a gamble
on two of literature's biggest themes: survivors' guilt and
redemption. The story is anchored by Max von Sydow's
performance as Samuel, an elderly man who was the only person
in his death camp to survive the Holocaust. Tempting the fates
because of his feeling of guilt, he opens a lavish casino whose
most interesting game is played in a back room, where for 30
years he successfully (or unsuccessfully if you will) plays a game
of Russian roulette, giving each opponent a first shot while then
doing likewise with his contestant. When Federico (Eusebio
Poncela), a man who possesses a similar luck is cast out, robbed
of his gift by his mentor, Sam, he is intent on revenge. He links
up with Tomas (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a bank robber who is the
sole survivor of a plane crash which killed 237, putting Tomas
through various paces that would allow him to challenge and
hopefully to kill Sam.
Director Fresnadillo states in his notes that "the inevitable logic
of capitalism becomes an extraordinary class struggle between
those who possess fortune's treasure and those who don't. While
online critic Walter Chaw found the story too conventional for this
and other intriguing premises, viewers cannot be blamed for
thinking the opposite: that the storyline is too twisted even to the
point of opacity to afford the concepts a sense of narrative.
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
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