City of M (2000)

This is a shallow movie that wants to be a realistic satire and scathing comment of Lima and Peruvian society. However it just comes across as one of the lesser soap operas produced by Luis Llosa. The dialog was written by posers. The climax and the epilogue are just plain stupid. The acting was amateur at best. The supposed depiction of poverty is one that obviously comes from upper-middle-class people, and racially it is far from realistic. The characters reminded me more of the snobs in Lima who like to pretend they are tough by dressing in $100 headbanger outfits and having fights outside a snob mall. They would have been beaten up in nanoseconds by the real street criminals. Check "Tinta Roja" or "Dias de Santiago" for a more realistic Lima.

This is a first rate, first acted movie. The director, the novel on which the movie is based and the scriptwriter have done a superb job. It successfully portrays the "middle class" that years of violence and economic crisis have left in Peru. Nothing to do with a typical Hollywood movie: it's pure acting, imagination, sense of humor and drama. Anybody interested in knowing Perú and Lantin America and in enjoying a good piece of art should see this movie. It borrows from Latin American, US and European cinema to create an original, truly Peruvian cinematic language. Specially relevant is the top acting quality of all actors that participated in this movie.

I picked this movie up because it sounded like a pretty decent flick, and I've always been a fan of Foreign films. However, for someone who likes movies, I was surprised at how much I hate, hate, HATED this movie.Although it does aim to expose the lives of young, lowerclass men in Lima, and to an extent it does succeeed, the characters are hopelessly shallow and the audience winds up having absolutely no feelings whatsoever for them.Although the story chiefly revolves around M, he rarely ever speaks, and his dialouge is, at best, amazingly dry and dull.*** Warning: Some small spoilers ***Basically, the story revolves around a young man named M who has been searching for jobs, but without success (He does gain employment twice, but quits because they're "not for him", when you're poor, the last option you have is to be picky). Some amount of time is spent with his friends, who's idea of "fun" is to rape a little 14 year old, steal crappy tires off a piece of shit car for a dime sack of weed, and several other slightly retarded activities.M's friend comesup with a plan to make $25,000 a piece and move to the US by running Cocaine to Miami. When the drug lord gives them a job, we're treated to an extremely lame scene of the three friends buying clothes at the mall with some music playing in the background. We see them trying different clothes on like little girls given $200 to shop, get there hair cut, and then strutting off looking like slick gangsters (one character, Carlos, will from this point on wear sunglasses ALWAYS... even at night).The day before they leave, the leader of the group leaves to speak with the drug lord, leaving M and his friend to be dumb. They party up, take several samples of the drugs they're suppose to run, and break into thier old school, acting like animals and smashing everything in sight.The movie ends when M tries calling his girlfriend, who hangs up on him. The friends then proceed to set the pay phone on fire, which brings out a bunch of kids and some old man with gun. M and Carlos' friend in charge of the drug run shows up on his motorcycle and wants them to leave with him now. Then he takes off by himself, and gets shot by that old man. The police show up and arrest M and his friends (but not the man who shot the guy) and cover thier dead friend up with newspapers as music plays and it fades to credits.**** End Spoiler ****I even watched this movie a second time, hoping to see some subtle, redeeming factor for it, but I did not. A complete waste of 102 minutes. Although I must give it credit for being straightforward and not shying away from disturbing elements, the casting, acting, and overall direction still leaves much, much, much to be desired.IMHO, if you're interested in a movie that explores the issues this one was suppose to, go rent City of God (Cidade de Deus) instead. Avoid this trash at all costs! You have been warned!!

Ciudad de M succeeds in many levels, especially the script which starts clumsily but then takes us through a dark trip with the forgotten youth of Lima. The main problem of the movie is its casting which would have been much better had the director chosen someone less white and more peruvian to play the part of M. Magill is a good actor, however he does not fit the image of a low class bum in a city like Lima. The plot is straightforward, and the dialogue (though full of cuss words) brought me back to the Lima of the 90's. I liked the cinematography and the fact that the only tried to show the ugly side of a metropolis like Lima. Definitely worth the wait and the time