Heli (2013)

If this was the 'best' Mexico had that year, the others must have been pretty bad. It was slow. Too many car rides and views from the back seat. The lead actor s**cked in his role. Others weren't much better. The DVD cover had "Stunning", "Powerful" and "Soul of Mexico" as praises. Bull! Not a good film and this was chosen Best Director at Cannes? Sheesh.

This movie is a piece of art. Frame by frame you can clearly see Amat Escalante's and his team dedication.The script is the best I have seen in any Mexican film. Beautifully captures the life in a broken country, where people can't go with the police and ask for help, where drug lords are the ones that run the government and people work all day to live a miserly life.As a classical melody, the film moves slowly, giving you quiet strings at the beginning, some strong percussions in the middle and, in the end, just a piano playing sad arpeggios. I hope to see more Mexican filmmakers develop projects like this in the future.

HELI is a Mexican crime film marketed as a dark and disturbing thriller that reveals the terrible fall-out that follows on from an ordinary family falling foul of drug dealing gang members. What reviews also failed to mention is that it's rather dull and stodgy, for the most part.The problem with HELI is the attempted worthiness; this was conceived as Oscar bait, so there's a level of stillness and artiness throughout. I don't mind arty films per se, but they have to be interesting enough to keep my attention, such as Andrzej Zulawski's POSSESSION. While HELI certainly has plenty of redeeming qualities, such as some quite stunning landscape cinematography, there just isn't enough story to sustain the running time.The set-up of the film, introducing a poor family in rural Mexico, is okay as things go. Then things get very dark and harrowing with the crime story, including some unflinching torture sequences which offer the sort of stuff we've never seen before. It's truly shocking and easily the best part of the film.And yet it seems to fizz out after that. The last act goes back to the sedate feel of the early scenes and it proves a real anticlimax compared to what's gone before. I understand the writer/director's intention is to depict the effect of trauma upon ordinary lives, but the characters just aren't interesting or likable enough that you care. HELI had plenty of potential, but that's the issue I had with it: I just didn't care a jot for any of those involved.

Heli is another Mexican violent film. Even though México is not the only country with mafia and crime, the Mexican producers can't show different perspectives of life since 80's. The plot is simple and silly, the end is predictable. Easy to write story, just a bunch of violent sequences, the characters are really stupid or with low IQ (Lots of Mexican movies made by Mexicans depicts the same irresponsible "malinchismo") The shocking scenes are just that, a cheap intent to impact the audience (blood, vomit or burns are always the easy way to cause an impact in audience -even by amateurs-, while professional writers prefer human stories, which requires talent that is not available in this embarrassing and silly film)