Monday, January 24, 2011
BREAKDOWN
Today's film was the ESPN documentary
This is the story of two guys from Colombia named Escobar who are not related in any way by blood but whose stories merge in a violent outcome for both.
One of these guys is a player on the Colombia soccer team, a star, and the other Escobar is the Medellin drug king pin.
The overall story is about the corruption and breakdown in society in Columbia over drugs, the way that its soccer establishment became engaged in the corruption and the impact on the players, especially Escobar. His personal story is the arc around the writer/director Zimbalist brothers have built this suspenseful film.
I do not follow any sport, let alone soccer, so I knew none of this. As a dramatic tale the Zimbalists have constructed their film from all sorts of video bits and create an ominous and suspenseful experience, for this viewer anyway.
This disc is the most popular in Netflix library and I had it on queue for 6-8 weeks as number one before it was my turn. It is an edge of the seat experience.
Some of the video is great. The older stuff is pre-digital and so blobby on my screen. But you can see the plays and, mercifully, these are kept short enough and have some repetition so that a person like me, with no eye for sports coverage, can tell what is happening.
I would not want to see this again since it is so depressing. And scandalous.
For once, the US is not implicated and the tragedy of the story is very human. Evil type human.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5 because it is so good even though I will not watch it again. Grisly and sordid and sad.
Remember the ratings. 1 is that I didn't like it and skipped. 2 is that I didn't like it and did not skip. 3 is a good average high rating. A good film and thank you. A 4 is that I would be willing to see it again. 5 is that I definitely will see it again.
Labels: films
