Nicotina (2003)

............................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA and ORLANDO, FL Equal parts Tarantinoesque film noir, Greek tragedy plus sociocultural satire, Nicontina makes for a rousingly entertaining 90 minutes. Populated by a rather oddly colorful assortment of characters whose lives, in one way or another, revolve around cigarettes or attempting to curtail their use. Thusly, "Nicotina" is a passive cast member. What really makes this work is the quality of the ensemble performance and the uncanny sense of timing of both director (Argentine Hugo Rodriguez-Producer/The Violin) and editor (Alberto de Toro). Diego Luna (Y Tu Mama Tambien) delivers an Oscar nomination worthy performance as the Uber-creepy obsessive voyeur criminal nerd next door. With a Classic flair noir twist, Lolo(Luna)learns a painful Karmic lesson on the nefarious repercussions of his techno-voyeurism. 8.5*...ENJOY/DISFRUTELA!!!Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome! [email protected]

It's a warm night in Mexico City and we peek in on 90 minutes of obsessive behavior mixed with criminal activity.Lolo (Diego Luna) is trying to sell codes to a Swiss bank to a Russian in exchange for diamonds, while he peeks in on Andria (María Beláustegui). She discovers his peeping, and destroys the disks he made. Now, the fun begins.Lolo meets Nene (Lucas Crespi) and Tomson (Jesús Ochoa), but he doesn't have the disk they are paying for. Double cross? No, just carelessness, but shooting starts and the Russian starts running. He ends up in a barbershop run by Carmen (Rosa María Bianchi) and Goyo (Rafael Inclán), where things really get bizarre and out of control.Nene ends up in a pharmacy with Clara (Carmen Madrid) and Beto (Daniel Giménez Cacho). Lolo ends up there, too.The whole movie plays like a guy Ritchie caper with a Mexican flavor.The subject of smoking and quitting runs throughout. it provides many moments of humor, and eventually, one smoker's carelessness does him in.At best a PG-13. It' s dark comedy with only suggested sex.

A voyeuristic computer nerd (Diego Luna) figures out a way to make some extra cash by providing his services to anyone that will hire him. He does a job for his buddy, who in turn is going to sell the information to the Russian Mob (or at least one member of the mob), in exchange for 22 diamonds. The camera brings us along for the ride. Fast paced action features a crisscross of characters making their way through el D.F.The story line runs in 'real time', don't blink, just keep up (don't miss the gross out scene with the barber's wife) . Some people compare it to Pulp Fiction, I saw more Tampopo then Travolta. Nice eye candy in the form of Lucas Crespi and Diego Luna. Excellent soundtrack. A little Run Lola Run, a little Amores Perros, some Lock, Stock...all and all, a good movie, take a long drag and exhale.

There is a problem in the mexican film industry: the mexican directors and producers are filming basically light comedies. Their main goal is to recover their investment, they think that comedies with a simple plot is the best way to bring people to see their movies (and pay for a ticket to do it) So, most of the recent mexican movies are comedies and most of them have a great technical realization but with a poor argument. And off course, the actors are repeating the same characters over and over again.Nicotina is just another urban comedy. As simple As that. The film hasn't any improvement at all. The plot, and the situations are very familiar with some previous films like "Todo el Poder" or "Ciudades oscuras" Here in mexico we're waiting for a breakthru motion picture, with a good and trascendental plot...Since "Amores Perros" or "Y tu mamá también" the mexican films are just the same.nicotina is 6 out of 10.