The unfortunate part of Greetings To The Devil is that the entire film I kept thinking what a great remake this would make with like Jason Statham, or Bruce Willis, and a talented action thriller director...insert name here...because honestly the creation of this Colombian film is just a mess. The character development is decent and you already feel plenty of compassion for our main character, Angel, when the action kicks into high gear...or rather low gear. The story gets convoluted and does not go into the direction of a former guerrilla looking for vengeance or redemption but just a guy doing a job and you're watching him do it. I wanted more fast paced action, I wanted a smarter outcome, and I wanted more hands down action driven violence but you get very little of that as they try to turn a potentially great action movie into a story about morality. Skip this one. It will only serve to disappoint.
3 Reviews
Nice try!
BartholomewRoberts12 August 2011
I didn't know what to expect before I went to the cinema today, usually Colombian movies are all about the same old story's (drugs, guerrilla, rich/poor struggle and love triangles) It's also normal for me as a Colombian to expect lack of decent technical performance due to low budget editing, poor sound, horrible make up /costume and terrible cinematographic "ambientation", this as I said before is the usual.
The prologue and the first minutes when the script talks about the "justice and peace" law that my country has been trying to initiate make me really eager to know how this will be approached.
As the minutes pass by, this movie tries to leave behind all the stereotypes that I early described, but it swings and fails BADLY strike one!
First thing you might want to know, is that this movie has the financial support of "Caracol" a large company in Colombia that has enough resources to produce a film with a high budget, of course for a Latin-American film not comparable with Hollywood.
Even though this movie has all the intention to get outside the label of the "Colombian" movies by putting money into better technical specs and by investing in a superior cinematography environment has major "flow bumps" by trying too hard to get outside this "usual" box.
Dialogues are ambivalent either to be truthful or to be understandable, that tells us that filmmakers thought about selling it to others Hispanic country's that might not buy the whole stereotypical Colombian slang that most movies from my country use.
Visually I've got to admit that its better than most of its type, but its unable to reach the benchmark that the "new wave" of Latin movies had established such as "The Secret in Their Eyes" "City of God" or "Pan's Labyrinth". Visual effects are absurd and ridiculous! Sound effects also fails miserable and takes you out of context so quick that I catch myself looking at my watch twice in less than a minute, Strike two!! The storyline won't capture the audience and all attempts to create tension or the emotional stress of either the drama or the action scenes are a sad joke. Strike out!!!
I'm really sorry that this movie sucked so badly. This is the result of investing lots of money in everything but a really good screenwriter and a decent education in film school.
The main story if developed properly, could be a success but the ambition and the pretentious form that the filmmakers approached it is a great disappoint.
My humble advice: Don't waste your money on this one.
(sep/2014)It's very funny but I just checked my review after years of posting it (I forgot all about it) and it says that about 20+ did not found it useful, it's probably the same 20+ that found useful the absurd extra positive review, and investigating that author, one can tell that it's people related to the movie! what a joke, if you have to like your own movie cause nobody else did it, it because you're movie STINKS, in Spanish: ESTA PELICULA DA ASCO!
The prologue and the first minutes when the script talks about the "justice and peace" law that my country has been trying to initiate make me really eager to know how this will be approached.
As the minutes pass by, this movie tries to leave behind all the stereotypes that I early described, but it swings and fails BADLY strike one!
First thing you might want to know, is that this movie has the financial support of "Caracol" a large company in Colombia that has enough resources to produce a film with a high budget, of course for a Latin-American film not comparable with Hollywood.
Even though this movie has all the intention to get outside the label of the "Colombian" movies by putting money into better technical specs and by investing in a superior cinematography environment has major "flow bumps" by trying too hard to get outside this "usual" box.
Dialogues are ambivalent either to be truthful or to be understandable, that tells us that filmmakers thought about selling it to others Hispanic country's that might not buy the whole stereotypical Colombian slang that most movies from my country use.
Visually I've got to admit that its better than most of its type, but its unable to reach the benchmark that the "new wave" of Latin movies had established such as "The Secret in Their Eyes" "City of God" or "Pan's Labyrinth". Visual effects are absurd and ridiculous! Sound effects also fails miserable and takes you out of context so quick that I catch myself looking at my watch twice in less than a minute, Strike two!! The storyline won't capture the audience and all attempts to create tension or the emotional stress of either the drama or the action scenes are a sad joke. Strike out!!!
I'm really sorry that this movie sucked so badly. This is the result of investing lots of money in everything but a really good screenwriter and a decent education in film school.
The main story if developed properly, could be a success but the ambition and the pretentious form that the filmmakers approached it is a great disappoint.
My humble advice: Don't waste your money on this one.
(sep/2014)It's very funny but I just checked my review after years of posting it (I forgot all about it) and it says that about 20+ did not found it useful, it's probably the same 20+ that found useful the absurd extra positive review, and investigating that author, one can tell that it's people related to the movie! what a joke, if you have to like your own movie cause nobody else did it, it because you're movie STINKS, in Spanish: ESTA PELICULA DA ASCO!
The greatest Colombian movie
magonzalez_co10 August 2011
This movie is to the fullest degree the best Colombian movie I've ever watched. It undeniably has a truly exciting plot. The director (Juan Felipe Orozco) ensures the audience maintains mental and emotional strains the entire film. From minute one the film engage spectators into an endless drama into the mind and circumstances of a former guerrilla member enrolled in voluntary demilitarisation programme. This movie offers an important critic to the Colombian government policy "Justice and Peace" that aims to compensate victims of guerrillas' attacks for life lost and damages. It portrays the political implications of psychological tensions of those who have been affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. Although, it is a movie about the extent of the consequences of a violent reality in the South American country, it is presented as a genius thriller on the psychological damages and the limitless extent of revenge. The acting of all the main characters is genuinely remarkable, it is specially astonishing the acting of Colombian actress Carolina Gomez.
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