[AMIGO
screens Friday November 11th at 9:15 pm and Saturday November 12th at
7:05 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Bob
Ignizio
Village leader
Rafael (Joel Torre) finds himself in a real bind when American
soldiers set up a garrison in his baryo. Lieutenant Compton (Garrett
Dilahunt) believes part of his job is to win hearts and minds, but
Colonel Hardacre (Chris Cooper) is only interested in getting intel
about the enemy. If the carrot works, fine, but Hardacre has no
aversion to using the stick if necessary.
Although Rafael is
somewhat ambivalent about the rebels himself, his son Joaquinito
(James Obenza) has run off to join their ranks, and his brother Simon
(Ronnie Lazaro) heads the local cell. Family ties offer no guarantee
that Rafael won't be killed if he's perceived to be helping the
foreign occupiers, though. As Rafael says to his wife (Rio Locsin),
he's, getting “f---ed from both ends.” He knows that whatever he
does, his fate is sealed. The best he can do is try to take care of
the villagers in his charge so that when this war eventually ends,
they won't be too bad off.
AMIGO
is set in the year 1900 during the Philippine-American War, but the
parallels to other conflicts are unmistakeable. The problems facing
regular folks just trying to survive while caught between various
warring factions are pretty much the same today in Afghanistan and
Iraq as they were 100 years ago in the Philippines. So are the
problems facing the occupying forces, chief among them the language
barrier and a poor understanding of the native culture.
Writer/director
John Sayles got his start writing screenplays for Roger Corman's New
World Pictures, and while it might seem odd to compare a classy
historical drama like this to drive-in fodder like PIRANHA
or ALLIGATOR,
AMIGO actually
follows the Corman formula fairly close. Corman always insisted that
his films have some kind of social commentary to them, but the
message had to take a back seat to making an entertaining film. And
that's exactly what Sayles does here, pulling us in with a good story
and strong characters. He integrates his socio-political themes well,
only occasionally coming across as obvious or heavy handed as in a
scene where a character is tortured by waterboarding.
The
main story here is Rafael's; he's a great character to spend a film
with, and Torre's performance is excellent. That said, the film is a
true ensemble piece with most of the supporting players getting at
least a scene or two in the spotlight. That does make for a meandering film at times, but for the most part I enjoyed the roundabout way
AMIGO gets to its
destination. And if AMIGO
doesn't quite measure up to the best of Sayles' work like LONE
STAR or RETURN OF THE
SECAUCUS SEVEN, it's still
better than 90% of the American films I've seen this year. 3 1/2 out
of 4 stars.
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