Tony Manero (2008)

A man is obsessed with John Travolta's disco dancing character from Saturday Night Fever (1977).

Director:

Pablo Larraín

Writers:

Alfredo Castro, Mateo Iribarren

Stars:

Alfredo Castro, Amparo Noguera, Héctor Morales

13 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alfredo Castro	...	Raúl Peralta
Amparo Noguera	...	Cony
Héctor Morales	...	Goyo
Paola Lattus	...	Pauli
Elsa Poblete	...	Wilma
Nicolás Mosso	...	Tomás
Enrique Maluenda	...	TV host
Marcelo Alonso	...	The Rumanian
Antonia Zegers	...	TV producer
Diego Medina	...	TV producer
Cristián Ordoñez	...	TV security guard
Greta Nilsson	...	Cinema cashier
Marta Fernández	...	Assaulted old lady
Marcial Tagle	...	Glass seller
Freddy Huerta	...	Man with flyers

Storyline

Raúl, a middle-aged, unemployed man, is obsessed by the character Tony Manero, who John Travolta plays in the film "Saturday Night Fever". He tries to imitate Travolta's impersonation in every detail, to be able to perform the most perfect Tony Manero himself. Raúl lives in a shabby house in Santiago. In a spacious room the landlady Wilma has a simple stage, where Raúl and some other tenants rehearse a show in Tony Moreno style. The young performers Goyo and Pauli are involved in underground activities against the Pinochet regime. Goyo gives some political flyers to a man. Raúl tails the man, and happens to see the secret police shooting him. After a while Raúl returns to the corpse, and steals the man's wristwatch. He goes to a junk dealer, where he swaps the watch for some thick glass bricks. He needs these for the stage floor, to be able to light up the show from beneath, just as in the film. In need of more glass bricks, he kills the junk dealer and steals the bricks. In his new ...

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Plot Keywords:

sex | murder | mother daughter relationship | depravity | brutality | 

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Genres:

Drama | Music

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Certificate:

TV-MA

Did You Know?

Trivia

The movie's boasts the DVD tagline "It's murder on the dance floor". Neither the song of the same name sung by Sophie Ellis-Bextor is heard in the film nor is such a death on the dance floor scene actually seen (though there are murders).

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Goofs

The "Members Only" jacket worn by Raul wasn't introduced until 1981, and the film takes place in 1978.

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Quotes

Title Card: [first lines]
Don Enrique: [subtitled version] And now we present our look-alike contest: 'The One O'clock Festival'
Security Guard: Wait here, please.

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Connections

References Saturday Night Fever (1977)

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Soundtracks

Gigolo
Performed by Frequencia Mod
Written by Frank Dostal and Rolf Soja

User Reviews

You should be frantic while watching this one.

If that infamous movie character name of this foreign film's title is dancing very familiarly in your head, you have a good guess on who it is; none other than John Travolta's character in the 70's classic "Saturday Night Fever". So why is Tony Manero dancing now with foreign stars? Well, the character of Tony Manero not only took our nation by storm, but also had profound global awareness in the 70's and thereafter. The movie "Tony Manero" steps its way into the obsessed mind of protagonist Raul Perelta, a middle-aged serial killer residing in 1970's Chile under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Perelta has some scary moves by sabotaging anything or anyone who gets in his way in perfecting the embodiment & characterization of Tony Manero. In other words, not many that cross the Peralta pathway are "staying alive" throughout the film's narrative. His premier quest is to dance his way to the top prize in a Chilean TV show's "Tony Manero celebrity impersonation" contest. Director Pablo Larrain and screenwriters Alfredo Castro & Mateo Iribarren formulate the character of Peralta as such a disturbed and repulsive protagonist that it questions "how deep were their thoughts" in the film's developing process. The Raul Peralta character is so repugnant and odious that it automatically disengages one to the film's central narrative. Castro's leading performance as Manero had a severe case of the "thespian broken record syndrome" with its monotone method. If it can have you Mr. Castro, then why not include other similar subpar performances from the film's supporting cast. Now I must admit that I enjoyed a few scenes of "Tony Manero" that paid homage to "Saturday Night Fever" including when Peralta mumbles the lines of Fever in the theatre while watching it countless times, his shock when he first observes that John Travolta's Danny Zuko character in "Grease" is a far cry from Travolta's Manero, and to some degree the film's Manero impersonation contest during the film's climax. But when "Tony Manero" turns into Peralta's maddening ways it deteriorates into a big slap on the face on the Fever legacy. Overall, "Tony Manero" is a feverless 2009 movie odyssey that is not worth taking. *** Average

Details

Official Sites:

Bazuca Films [Chile] Sophie Dulac Distribution [France]

Country:

Chile Brazil

Language:

Spanish English

Release Date:

28 August 2008 (Chile)

Also Known As:

Tony Manero

Filming Locations:

Santiago, Chile

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$3,305, 5 July 2009

Gross USA:

$20,677

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$687,406

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fabula Productions, Fabula, Latina Estudio Prodigital

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1