Carancho (2011)

Dark, gloomy underbelly of Buenos Aires. Dirty, orange lights on even dirtier streets. Drugs, alcohol and the dire consequences. " Carancho" or "The Vulture", takes us to the world we'll rather never know about it. Tragic car crashes, broken glass and pints of blood soaked up by the filthy asphalt. And there are the people, those whose mission is to save and patch up, and those who prey upon the bereft and shocked. There is always money to be made on death and tragedy. Two broken imperfect creatures, desperately clinging to ever so elusive hope for tenderness and human touch. Too much to ask? Perhaps not, but there is nothing fair about this spinning madhouse of a planet we inhabit. Some have it all, and most just roam around hoping and waiting.

CARANCHO ('Vulture' or 'a bird of prey; an animal that attack and feed on wounded animals') is a disturbing film from the opening sequences until the end. Before any story begins we are given the information (superimposed over black and white photographs for broken glass and bodies on a street) about the number of automobile accidents and deaths (in excess of 8,000) each year, the leading cause of deaths in Argentina. This grim fact has produced an even more grim industry - ambulance chasing lawyers who follow and even at times stage accidents in order to collect from insurance and scam the real victims and the insurances companies too. This industry requires the participation of doctors, paramedical personnel and police on the take. Every aspect of this horrendous situation is played out in this tersely written (Alejandro Fadel, Martín Mauregui, Santiago Mitre, and Pablo Trapero who also directs). It is a tough film to watch but does serve to alert the audience to a major crime industry that though set in Buenos Aires, Argentina is prevalent probably throughout the world. Sosa (Ricardo Darín) is a lawyer who has lost his license form some unstated reason who is now working for a 'foundation' that falls into the category discussed above. He not only chases ambulances but also pays men to stage them so that he can collect money based on the fact that he works with the distraught families to win power of attorney for the injured or deceased, giving him access to the insurance money. His bosses are competitive and Sosa is repeatedly attacked physically a la mob style for his failure to perform. Sosa meets Luján (Martina Gusman), a beautiful young doctor who is at the beginning of her career and must work emergency rooms and ride in ambulances to administer to the injured or ill in order to gain experience to become a respected physician. They meet over an accident - Luján is giving aid to a victim and Sosa is planning to use the victim in his crime racket. Both Sosa and Luján seem to have occult senses of responsibility and ethics but life has brought them to a place where they must submerge their standards in order to survive: Luján happens to be a drug addicted 'to sustain the brutality of her work' and Sosa endangers the lives of innocent people to satisfy the bosses to whom he must bow in order to survive. It is this contrast between their passion for each other and their participation in the dark crime of 'caranchos' that provides the push/pull of their relationship, resulting in an ending few will predict. Both Darín and Gusman are outstanding in very difficult roles, but the supporting cast - Carlos Weber, José Luis Arias, Fabio Ronzano, Loren Acuña, Gabriel Almirón, and José Manuel Espeche - is equally strong in smaller roles. This is a very dark film - in story, in locale (the San Justo region of Buenos Aires), and in the fact that it all takes place at night - but it carries information we all need to note and molds that information into a suspenseful thriller that is so well paced by director Pablo Tapero that every moment is filled with meaning. Grady Harp

One thing that works in this movie is the chemistry between Sosa and Lujan, a discredited lawyer and a drug-addicted emergency room doctor with a self-destructive personality. The picture comes close to the Warner Bros. B-picture genre of the 40s, with the exception that there is no on-screen moral center. Lujan, played by Martina Gusman, quickly moves over to the dark side. Cynically, her drug addiction feels like an after-thought added by one of the writers to explain her compulsions, that go so quickly out of control. Her attraction for Sosi comes out of left field, and the drug addiction is probably an attempt to justify this, but seems over the top and unnecessarily to stack the deck against her. In any case, her habit should have been introduced earlier. The lawyer, Sosa, played by Ricardo Darin, is nasty. He goes after Lujan's assailant with uncontrolled violence and rage --far different than Bardem's understated emotional turmoil in 'Biutiful,' in a similar situation. Finally, why the incomprehensible deus-ex-machina ending? The filmmakers had a more interesting setup than I think they knew how to develop.

A good story and a good effort, hard though, but is not as good as Darin's previous hit, "El Secreto de sus ojos".The story is a real good one, a truly hard and real story, that could happen everywhere on America, and Europe, as far as i know, obviously with "the Argentinian touch", expressions and such...The movie is actually well conducted, well acted, and the scenes are pretty credible, but when we look at this movie we first thought on the previous Argentinian big screen hit, and the previous Ricardo Darin's one, and isn't even closer to the captivating story and scenes from "El Secreto de sus ojos", and i wouldn't be surprised if this one doesn't reach any Oscar nomination this year, besides from that is a truly enjoyable movie, maybe too short because the main idea could handle a few more minutes of narration and even, a few more twists.The ending of the movie is pretty predictable, (you know when you play with fire...) but is good enough to close the film.Actually i would say this movie is more than a 7 but less than an 8...in my opinion, 7.5 should have been the best rate for the movie, and the summary line "A good story, pretty enjoyable movie" but not far away than that.