BURNT MONEY (PLATA QUEMADA) *
2000 - Argentina Director: Marcelo Piñeyro Starring: Eduardo Noriega, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Pablo Echarri, Leticia Brédice
Reviewed by Frankie Paiva
Burnt Money is the perfect festival film. It will show once or twice, and then no one, thankfully, will ever have to hear from it again. This film from the Seattle International Film Festival 2001's Emerging Masters series is easily one of the year's worst. Billed as a gay `Bonnie and Clyde', this gritty film from director Marcelo Piñeyro has its only highlight in a well-designed title sequence.
Two gay lovers get involved in a bank robbery that makes a gang leader, whose plan they screwed up, angry. This causes the gang leader to send his boys out to get the gay guys, one of whom may not actually be gay. Hiding out in a prostitute's apartment, the two men must fight off police and gang members in a very long showdown for the movie's conclusion. If caught, they risk losing all the money, and their love. As an added emotional bonus, one of the gay men is dying.
Or something like that. Everything that happens is so quick and confusing I was completely lost. Clarity isn't exactly this movie's striving virtue, so it was a little hard to pick up. Not much could have really happened though. The main events in this long two-hour film are explicit homosexual and heterosexual sex, graphic drug use, extreme violence, and strong language. Lots of explicit material is never a bad thing when there's a reason, but there's no purpose to anything in this film. Most of the sex and violence scenes come off as silly, while the heavy drug use comes off as ridiculous and depressing. It appears Piñeyro (who co-wrote with Marcelo Figueras, from a novel by Ricardo Piglia) purposefully adds more blood and lovemaking for his own amusement. He makes the actors as sweaty and dirty as possible, makes them snort cocaine, gives them guns and condoms, and lets them go.
Burnt Money is pointless. The performances are bad. It tries to thrill and shock, but only causes boredom. God forbid it will ever get a distributor. Another disappointing film from this year's so-called Emerging Masters series. Pass on by.
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