Film reviews
The Dictator
A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.
The Woman In Black
Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.
Careless Love
Sidestepping a more extreme take on prostitution, this is a quietly impressive portrait of a young woman caught in a tragic situation.
Empire Of Silver
Its backdrop is a rich and fascinating one, but the film is let down by a screenplay and direction that fails to register on a personal level.
search the site
newsletter
Enter your email address below to receive the weekly Filmink newsletter
Acorazado (Film)
Rating: E
Running Time: 102
Country: Mexico
Director: Álvaro Curiel
Cast: Camille Natta, Silverio Palacios, Salvador Sánchez
Distributor: Hola Mexico Film Festival
Release Date: October 27, 2011 Acorazado screens at the Hola Mexico Film Festival nationwide from October – December. Check http://www.holamexicoff.com/australia/ for details
Film Worth: $13.00
FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worthClever, satirical premise let down due to its sitting on the fence conclusion.
Acorazado is the first feature film from Mexican television writer and director, Álvaro Curiel. Ignored by his family and ridiculed by his friends, Silverio (Silverio Palacioson) spends his time composing political speeches and spraying them at passers by. Although outrageous and immature, he is utterly endearing in a Mexican, Roberto Benigni kind of way. When Silverio decides he wants a better life, he seeks it in the tried and true American Dream.
Silverio is convinced by a friend that if he washes up in Florida claiming emancipation from communism, he'll be welcomed by the American Government. Thus he sets sail in his ‘Acorazado' (battleship in Spanish) - a homemade life raft topped with his VW Beetle. Bad weather and worse navigational skills land Silverio on the beaches of Cuba instead. Now he must improvise a new speech - the first Mexican seeking Socialist refuge from Capitalism.
The promise of a Mexican Life is Beautiful, dries up with Silverio in Cuba. Where Benigni built Guido's child-like humour to contrast the horrors of anti-Semitism, Álvaro Curiel, loses his way. Silverio seems stuck in the middle of socialism and communism and not as a clever device for proving either or neither. Instead, it feels like Curiel himself can't decide, so neither does Silverio.
If only Acorazado could have maintained the smart, satirical premise with which it began. Unfortunately it was more like Silverio's journey, a little lost and lacking in direction.
