Candy and a Movie: Movie #44 Intacto

Intacto (2001)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0220580/

Sorry for the delay. A test came up yesterday that I totally forgot about and required urgent cramming. At least Spain and Croatia have joined the party. Intacto is a movie that I knew relatively little about. What I did know is that 1.)netflix was taking it off instant view 2.) Max Von Sydow is in it and he's been a good actor for like 60 years now 3.)it sounds kind of foreign. After looking it up, it was made in Spain and now it makes sense for someone in Spain to have read the blog for the first time. Look at me, connecting the dots.

First scene shows this guy just making bank at the roulette table. Like guessing number and colors back to back. I've only played roulette twice and it was awful. Bet black on the first roll and it landed on green 0. Left the table out of despair. Tried my luck again an hour making the same bet and that time it landed on green 00. What are the friggin odds of that? That's why you shouldn't gamble I guess. Someone upstairs see's how good this guy is doing and someone is sent down. Anyone who has seen a casino movie or show I'm sure can guess that he's going to take the guy away and bust him for cheating. Instead the dude walks past the guy and only touches his hand ever so slightly. Simultaneously(just spelled that right first try) the roulette guy lets everything ride on a new bet and the toucher drops a coin into a slot machine. Roulette guy loses and the toucher wins. It looks to me like he stole the other guy's luck.

The toucher heads to a small room and meets a guy with a pencil thin mustache. They head through a door and there is a guy sitting on a chair with a bag over his head. Weird. Mustache leaves and the dude takes the bag off of his head. It's MvS, aww yaa. MvS(the Jew) says that the toucher(Federico) is the only guy he lets see his face. Never can be too safe you know. Lets take a break right here from the movie and ask the question what is going on right now? I have no clue. I get that the movie is artsy and not a formulaic Hollywood script but setting up a story should also be important for a director. You don't have to come out and spell everything out to the viewer, nor should you but just jumping into the movie and never slowing down explain anything isn't the way to do it either. Geez.

Back to the plot. They chat a little. Both say that they have the gift of luck (pretty cool). The Jew says that he gave Federico his luck and he can also take it away. It seemed to me that the Jew (that's his name, I'm not an anti-semite) and Federico were kind of close but the Jew was also a little creepy. Is the bag totally necessary? Fred seemed to have picked up that vibe too because his next move is to get the heck out of that casino. He is caught, beaten and dumped onto a road somewhere. I think he lost his luck. That's it for this part of the movie.

We skip forward seven years into (back) to the future. A guy is at some messed up place. That is a terrible description but that is only because at the time, I couldn't figure it out. Looked kind of like a a landfill or a place where you imagine homeless people hang outside of a big city only with a grenade going off. The guy has some serious cash taped around his stomach and he gets airlifted out of there. Next he is sleeping in a hospital when a chick walks in. He wakes up and she pulls a gun on him. I really hope that isn't his girlfriend.

That's it for that encounter. Federico is now working with some dude. The dude puts on a blindfold and lines up like he is going to cross this busy highway while Federico films it. Looks like he is about to put his luck up to the test. He makes it pretty far across the street but gets absolutely drilled in the last lane. Bummer. I'm not a huge fan of people getting hit by vehicles in movies. Too violent. I'd rather they just get shot or stabbed. The chick from the hospital is a cop maybe and shows up at the scene of the accident the next day. Lets take another break from the movie. The note I wrote down at this point is “Movie is making me angry you don't know anything I'm not dumb movie is”. No matter how stupid I might sound when I get frustrated and forget to punctuate things, we are still a good ways into this movie and I am guessing on absolutely everything. We only know two people's name and I don't know their purposes then I have no idea who the chick is and why she is pulling guns on dudes, what happened to the dude and where is the money from. Oh and what is the plot of the movie?

A cop calls Federico and says that there was a plane crash which had only one survivor. Says the guy is at the hospital. Fred offers the cop money to get the dude who turns out to be the guy in the hospital. It wasn't a landfill that blew up, it was a plane crash site. Agitation reducing. Federico goes in posing as an insurance agent and breaks the guy (Tomas) out of the hospital. Turns out the chick who pulled the gun was a cop. The money that was taped to him was from a bank robbery two weeks earlier. That's why he got the face full of gun. Finally some answers.

Federico and Tomas form a luck partnership. Federico knows where to go and how to win the bets and Tomas has the luck. Tomas is never allowed to touch Fred though because if he does, he will lose his luck. Now it's time to make some money. Federico and Tomas show up at this place and the first thing that happens is some weird guy paints honey all over Tomas' hair. He is then ushered into a room with 3 other people. They all wager huge things like houses and millions of dollars and the game is beginning. It looks like they are going to play poker or something but the lights go off and all we can see is a little green light moving back and forth. The lights are turned on and there is a praying mantis or something on his head meaning he won. Whichever head the bug landed on wins the bet. Really? Can't come up with a cooler game richers? Anyway they make a ton of money and a house so they to check out their new pad. Tomas calls his girlfriend and the call gets traced to a pay phone right outside the mansion. The cops show up in the middle of the night. They get away but kind of touched a little. The chick from the hospital room is definitely a cop and she is kind of a bit*%. She is at the house and questions the guy who owned it. He of course just lost it in the bet but lies to the cop. He is known as the bull fighter by the way. The chick doesn't but the story but says if he helps her find Tomas then he'll be free to go.

They show up at the next game. This time there are 6 competitors and they each pick a “prisoner” from an interrogation room. Turns out the chick cop has had some luck herself in the past so the bull fighter tells her to pick one of the prisoners. They are one contestant short but what do you know, Tomas and Federico show up. The chick has been blindfolded at this point so she doesn't know it's him. That means tension for me watching. The game is that they each hug their prisoner and then whoever rolls the highest numbered die wins. Again, weird game. Tomas does girl and the cop sucks. She finds out Tomas is there, pulls off her blindfold and tries to arrest him. Right as she does this, the guy running the game hits her in the head for interrupting the game and she gets knocked out. Gets weirder. She wakes up and everyone is gone except for the bull fighter. He gets mad at her and rips her shirt (possibly a blouse) open so he is sort of naked. She has a massive scar across her chest too that I don't need to be see. Then he leaves and she is still just lying there.

Federico tells Tomas to keep the picture of his prisoner. He tells him that he has “won” that persons luck and it is now his as long as he has the photo. Pretty cool. They head for the last real game which takes place in the woods somewhere. Behind Tomas' back, Federico bets a picture of Tomas' girlfriend Ana. That's not good and tells you that he will be losing this game. Each of the lucky people put on blindfolds and have to run through the woods until only one person hasn't crashed into a tree. It looks for a while like Tomas is going to win but he comes in second place. Federico is mad that they lost everything on this bet and leaves Tomas in the woods. Tomas gets a ride from the bull fighter (who had just won the woods bet), finds out about him winning Ana's picture and asks for it back. Bull fighter says get real and get out.

The next couple minutes of the movie include that weird time when two main characters split up only to reconcile and become a team at the end. You know what I'm talking about, it happens a lot. The bullfighter go to the Jew and they play a game of Russian roulette. Finally something that isn't lame. The Jew wins just like he has every time for the last 40 years and kills the bull fighter. In the mean time, Tomas goes back to Federico and says he wants to go against the Jew to get Ana's picture which he now has after beating the bull fighter. Because Ana doesn't have her luck anymore, the cop who is screening her calls accidentally shoots her in the back through a wall. Most people would think that is bad but if it was me, I would sue the cops for sooooo much money. On top of that, the chick cop gives her serious attitude about not telling her where Tomas is. Ana tells her how Tomas told her that he didn't love her right before he got on the plane and that kept her from going with him and saved her life. Interesting.

THERE FINALLY IS AN ENDING

Tomas and Federico, along with the cop on her own who finds out about their plan, show up at the Jew's casino. The Jew talks to them and said he questioned whither testing his luck against Tomas would even be worth it since he lost in the woods. He says that he will give him a chance at Russian roulette because Tomas is the first person to come there out of love instead of luck and the Jew wants a new challenge. They talk some more and the Jew tells about how he was at a concentration camp and that's where his luck started. It's a cool story. Time for the showdown. Federico offers a picture of himself (and his luck) as the wager for Tomas redeeming himself for getting Ana in this in the first place. Fred gets the first shot and it doesn't go off, bummer. Now it's the Jew's turn and you can tell that they really don't want to kill each other. The cop busts in just as the Jew was about to shoot and his gun doesn't go off either. The lights go off and everyone, including body guards are now shooting. Everyone gets shot except for Tomas and Federico. That's pretty lucky. She tells Tomas that she doesn't love him anymore and in a way, saved him. Then she dies. Tomas gets Ana's picture and yells at Fred that it's time to get out of there. Federico kneels over the Jew's body and tells Tomas to go. You can tell that he is bummed that the Jew is dead, I think he was kind of his mentor. Tomas leaves, burn Ana's picture and the movie ends.

THERE

Favorite Scene : The ending was very intense. If not that, then prisoner game for the same reason.

Memorable Lines : I didn't write any down and the movie is in Spanish so I am having trouble finding some on the internet right now. Maybe I'll have luck later.

Rating : 6.8 Chinese Luck Candies. I was super into the premise of the movie. To me, it was really original and I wouldn't mind someone making a movie similar to it. Intacto also looks really good, the choreographer did a nice job. The only problem is I didn't think that the director did a good job telling the story. At least for the first hour, everything was a guess. I'm not patient enough for that, I have too many movies to watch. If you are into weird kind of fantasy movies than I think this is a solid watch

Alternate Ending : SPOILERS Tomas shoot the Jew and the cop walks in on it. He goes to jail and his luck is still on when he see's that his cell mate is Clint Eastwood. It is all just a though because it isn't actor Eastwood, it is director of Hereafter Eastwood. He's going nowhere.

What I would do if I was the main character: Go to a real casino. No need to keep playing pick a number or guess what hand it's in. Go to a casino and take the over on the Patriots game. They will always cover.

What happens in the sequel : Intacto 2: Still Intacto will first explain why the movie is called Intacto because I missed that and it will show how Tomas has turned into a lonely old man like the Jew who just wins everything and there are no more ups and downs about life making it dull. That is until he meets the new luckiest man in the world http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0034309/ because a guy who looks like that and married Christina Hendricks has to have some luck. Not sure who wins.