Labyrinth, Chinese Box, Imbroglio, Maze---Dud!
12 January 2006
Warning: Spoilers
The plot of this film is ultimately undecipherable. You'll have more luck figuring out "Finnegan's Wake." Were I to see this film several more times, I still would not be able to determine what is reality, what is fantasy, what is taking place in real time, what is taking place in imaginative time. There are flashbacks within flashbacks until chaos reigns. Entire plot lines, such as that of Jareño, are unrelated to others. The opening sequence will certainly draw you into the film, but it has virtually nothing to do with the main characters in the film. Both Javier and Felix could be described as the film's protagonist; whose story is this? I can't imagine that many people would stay with the film more than twenty minutes, thirty minutes at the most. I stayed with the film, naively thinking that in the denouement all of the pieces of plot would come clear. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The revelation made in the climax about the character Jacinto is something most viewers will probably be able to predict from the moment Jacinto first comes unto the screen. (I agree with another commentator here; watch the Adam's apple.) This character transformation (shall I say?) has been used in a number of films. And the plot device of having someone get away with murder has become ordinary. Just as in Woody Allen's new film, "Match Point," a coincidence here allows the real killer to go uncharged with the crime.

The credits are a direct steal from Saul Bass's credits from "Vertigo," and the music is imitative of Bernard Herrmann's score for the same film, which led me to expect something far more than this film delivers.

Save yourself a rental fee and a headache as well.
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