Review: http://www.worldofkj.com/article.php?i=483

Shocking twists wrapped up in a revenge flick. Confessions did it much better.

If there was one standout about this movie, it was the fantastic music from Concha Buika. That scene at the party just before the rape was hair-raising...holy crap, what a voice!

The film was too long. It felt like it went on for 5 hours instead of 2. They easily could have cut down another 30 minutes or so. The deliberate slow pacing of the film felt cheap as if they wanted to guide us through a half hour of commercials before 5 minutes of shocking reveals/twists. Personally, I don't have a problem with the story but I don't particularly care about what happened to the characters.

So he fucks the guy after he makes him over. Meh. The one thing that surprised me was that Banderas fell in love with his captive. I didn't like that they want that way with the character. It would have been better had he used the sex as revenge. Now that would have been something.

The director did a good job with the suspense but failed to deliver a tease in the middle. All he did was put all his cards in for the reveal and after wasting so much time with backstory, the escape felt rushed.

The actors did a magnificent job with the material. Cinematography was gorgeous.

It was a pretty suspenseful 2 hours but the plot twists didn't do much for me. 7/10 (B-)

7/10 -> B-

Considering the movie uses non-linear narration I think it loses a lot of its punch when it makes the central twist obvious about 30 minutes before the big reveal. And also from that point it just loses steam and isn't as interesting and engaging as the beginning of the movie.

I thought it was a pleasant surprise. Didn't expect much from it. I found it very intriguing and nicely twisted. I personally didn't find the twist obvious at all. I was shocked by the reveal.

8/10 (A-)

I thought it was pretty great. I didn't expect the twist and it had a lot of "holy shit!" moments, IMO.

8/10