The Crime of Father Amaro

This is not the best Portuguese movie ever made. And definitely not even a good movie. So what is all the fuss about? First, this was made for Portuguese audiences. It is a Portuguese story, the actors are known faces from television, the music can be heard in the radio. And with the help of a television network, a lot of publicity was made about it. Unfortunately, not for a good cause.

The story runs around the new priest in town, and how he falls into the temptations around him, becoming one of those he thought he would never be. But the adaptation of the 19th century novel does an effort to be "modern" and "cool", adding rap, street gangs, hungry news reporters and mafia-like businesses to the screenplay. And too much naked bodies.

And then unnecessary secondary stories take too much time from the primary action, so prepare for a really fast ending. Maybe that's good, you can go home earlier than you thought!!

The film is nothing else than an exposition of nudity. Has anyone noticed that all three main female characters appear naked? It looks like the only winning bet for Portuguese filmmakers is to include some (if not a lot) of nudity of the local stars, together with slang which otherwise, in the nowadays Portuguese society, is repulsed with horror. If you watch advertising for Portuguese films at Portuguese TVs, they all have included a "hot" scene from the movie. I'm not saying, by any means, that Portuguese society is alienated; just that the movie industry does not seem capable of finding others ways of success. Going back to the movie... There is nothing left from the spirit of the book, which is a masterpiece. The film could have been a good one, had there been emphasized the real idea of the book (of actuality at any time) and not the strictly erotic part. It had almost all the ingredients... but the "chef" was awful...

Very cool! Finally a good Portuguese movie with "salt" and "rythm" in it! Very young adult film. Oh, and the priest is so "ugly".....or not!!!! Just remember this is a contemporaneous adaptation of a 19th century Portuguese romance. it's not just a script made for a "cool gangs-sex" movie... We may compare it to "Tentação" (1997) with Joaquim De Almeida, but it has an all new taste (visual and musical) to the movie, definitely a 21th century film. There's also a little bit of comedy involved, not "cheesy" but ironic. I would also say a strong language is involved in this movie, so strong that identifies with current issues of our society. My opinion... see it for yourself!!! It's worth it!!!

This is a great movie.. Doesn't matter if you've read the book or not I'm sure you'll love it as I did. The story is about a young priest who fells into temptation with a fabulous woman but there are many other good stories in the movie. The critic to todays decadent Catholic Church is evident and is very well explored. The movie explores also the violence and crime in todays Lisbon surroundings of Chelas. If you've never been to Lisbon this movie will give you a good picture of the dirty side of the 'big' city. The gang action scenes and anti-crime brigade police intervention are pretty good.. it's just like in big Holiwood movies but this happens all the time at around Chelas. This movie has lots of talented actors - the best Portugal has to offer - and besides them there is the Portuguese discovery to cinema: Soraia Chaves. She is simply amazing.. no priest could resist her. Maybe in the future we can see her in a big Hollywood movie.. I'm sure! The soundtrack is very good, it's mostly Portuguese hip-hop featuring some of the best Portuguese bands of the moment like 'Da Weasel','Sam The Kid' and also 'Clã' among others. This is currently the second most seen film in Portugal and soon may be first. To sum up there's nothing to dislike in this movie: a Perfect 10/10 Go watch it!

As you might not know Eça de Queiroz is one of Portugal's most rightfully celebrated writers. He was witty, he spared no one in his critics and must now be rolling in his tomb. And that's not due to this movie being bad, which it is, but as a result of the treatment dispensed to one of his masterworks "O Crime do Padre Amaro". It's treated like cheap, throwaway trash.

When it was publicized that this was to be a "modern and urban" take on the book I feared for the worst, normally modern in these contexts means taking the liberty to take the p**** when doing an adaptation, to half arse it in the shoddiest possible way. And so the moral and social dilemma of a priest having a secret,forbidden affair are substituted by extra-long passages of people dealing drugs and singing hip-hop for no particular or pertinent reason to the plot. It's just there like it might very well not have been.

Oh and there's lots of sex so you can at least be counting on that when you put this on. Remember how every movie in the 80's, no matter the genre or the tone always found a way to sneak in some nudity? If it was a thriller and they had no need for it they simply found a way that when they were capturing a felon he "happened" to be in bed with a woman that would prance around screaming (naked of course) when the cops barged in. Ahem, gratuitous is the word I think. Not that there's anything wrong with nude scenes but here they make the creators of this movie look desperate simply because there's nothing else to the movie, it's totally devoid of what do you call it dramatic content.