| Overall Grade: |
B |
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| Story: |
B+ |
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| Acting: |
B |
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| Direction: |
B |
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| Visuals: |
B- |
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Good Movie, but...
by Ernesto J. (movies profile)
Oct 10, 2006
6
of
10 people found this review helpful
First things first, this movie fails to place the story in El Salvador. For those of us who know the difference, this movie SOUNDED like it took place in Mexico. The accents, idioms, lexicon... they were all wrong. If you're gonna tell a story about a particular country, try and be true it, please. Incorporate the local idioms. Don't just make a movie for gringos to drool over. Otherwise, just generalize the location of your story, thank you very much! The movie should be seen just to get a glimpse of war at its worst, where innocence is sacrificed in the name of ideals, both right and wrong depending on which side of the fence you stand. This is a story that takes place in many places of the world today. My personal story growing up in El Salvador is close to this, so I can tell you that the story is accurate to life. The acting did not impress me, except perhaps by the young boy who plays Chava. I think he did a great job . The rest of the acting was par. There were cliches peppered all over this film, so there was really no creativity involved. I think this is the main reason why this movie did not wow me. It seemed as though some things I had already seen in other movies. They just took the story, wrote the script and just filled in with cliches for effect where needed: slow-motion, mother and child embracing after terrible ordeal, guy playing guitar in the middle of a gunfight to calm the kids down (a song which by the way was truly banned during the war, and is a great truth teller)... Obviously, it works as most lay people think this is a great movie. I, who see more than the explosions, the gunfire, and the universal tale of innocence lost through the struggles of life in a third world country, think this is a good movie, and no more than that. You know, they could have asked me to assist with the language/accent coaching. I would have done it for free just to see my people properly portrayed on the big screen.
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