25 Carat

I saw this film in Catalan with no subtitles in an art house in Barcelona. I had no expectations; I went in blind by pure chance.

Usually a critic of Spanish films and its celebration of the mediocre, I fell in love with this film.

The main characters are Abel and Kay, though you don't find that out easily. In my notes, I just refer to him as "creepy guy" till I do find out his name. And indeed, the film begins with a creepy guy and a bad girl. Why should I follow them on their journey? Because they are as riveting as their journey.

It takes you on a roller coaster ride that you don't want to get off. Emotional, suspenseful, and disorienting, its unique sense of rhythm keeps you uncomfortable and heavy with anticipation - but of what you have no idea.

This film needs to be picked up for broader distribution. Even in Spain, it wasn't well-known. Come on, Lions Gate or Miramax.

A young girl, who is a cunning thief called Kay (Aida Folch) , and her crooked dad (Manuel Morón) , both of them in trouble , get attached to a debt collector , Abel (Francesc Garrido) , whose life is in turmoil too. Abel is a lonely guy who works collecting debts from defaulters , his methods are direct and expeditious and the results of him too. Although the pay is good, the work is not very rewarding. Together they hatch a plan to solve their problems while emerging outbursts of violence . They do bad things, but only because they see no other options for themselves. These are the citizens of the periphery, people who have been pushed aside by society, and if they want to have any hope of a legitimate future, they will only reach it through illicit means.

The film contains tension , thriller , drama , a love story and plot twists , including decent suspense with tense sequences especially in its final part , in a unexpected denouement , near of the end . The original as well as entertaining idea is overspread throughout the movie , but not totally satisfactory , including conventional pitfalls . Dealing with a pair of outsiders : a small-time thief who gets into trouble, and a tough father with a child who suffers from the unfortuna death of his beloved wife , along the way they realize their fate must be stay together . Starting from a quite predictable and quite conservative scenario , filmmaker Amézcua tries to delve into the life of the thieves at the bottom of the chain of illegality , searching in the desperation of their colorless daily life, the small hopes for the future, and the moments that they keep so that the long ones of the past enter and endure their present . Amézcua puts their characters through classic romance, who must be trampled by the ugliness around them before they can be brought to life while develop and redeem themselves. Inside it he throws two subplots, which are as basic as they are, but also weak, and lets them tangle together, until they come to meet in a way that lacks the necessary discretion, and together they make the rope the heroes must avoid, to reach the end that you hope will await them, after having gone through the various clichés that will prepare them first, In a film that has the strong performances of the two leads, underlining the good intentions of the production, but beyond that, It doesn't give you anything else to tell.

Amezcua has been blessed with a very strong cast , each player perfectly fitting his roles and situations . Francesc Garrido straddles the line between the tough debt collector , able to do whatever it takes to get the job done, and the doting father who nurtures a kind of emotional fragility that makes him wonderfully attractive to Kay . In many ways, this film lives and dies with the role of Abel with a simple dream : to leave everything and go live with her son in a house by the sea , but since he lost his wife in an accident, his life is not very exemplary, quite the contrary , and actor Francesc Garrido confidently carries the film from start to finish . Aida Folch is a good match for Garrido, as the rogue thief Kay and the rest of the cast are just as strong . The script is sharp and the direction acceptable .

Beautifully shot by cameraman Sergi Gallardo in a raw and adequate style that gives energy to the story , Amezcua's film attempts the difficult task of staying true to the rules of its chosen genre while adding something entirely different to the mix and successful enough . The criminal life that he describes here is raw and violent and one hundred percent believable, the characters that inhabit it in the same way. And yet, that doesn't stop them from being understanding and nice .

The film was well produced by various producers as Quique Camín and José Nolla along with the usual subsidies from the national and regional governments . Being professionally written and directed by Patxi Amezcua who subsequently realized only ¨Infiesto¨ and ¨Séptimo¨, and wrote and ¨Bruc , ¨El Desafío¨ and ¨El Viaje De Arian¨, ¨Un hombre de acción¨ , ¨La sombra de la ley¨, ¨El Aviso¨, ¨Sin Limites¨ , among others. The movie will appeal to suspense buffs . Rating : 6/10 ; Good . It's well worth watching and contains some really thrilling scenes and attractive images . 25 Carats is one of the surprising little films that deserve a lot of praise in some aspects .