Rated: R
STARS: Ricardo Darin, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Dario Grandinetti, Erica Rivas, Oscar Martinez
DIRECTOR: Damian Szifron
GENRE: Dark Comedy
Six wickedly delicious Wild Tales from Argentina illustrate how dangerously close many of us are to the edge-- and how little it may take to send us right over it.
Strangers on a plane discover, one by one, that they all have a connection to a certain person. Then comes the chilling realization that this person is in the cockpit! (This one hits close to home in light of recent events.)
A mafioso stops at a cafe where the waitress recognizes him as the person who destroyed her family. Sympathetic to her plight, the cook offers to put rat poison in the man's food. But the waitress has conflicting emotions. Like most of these vignettes, the ending has a twist you won't see coming.
Two men driving their vehicles on a deserted highway become involved in a road rage incident. (If they were the last two people on earth, this would still happen!) And as we all know, these things have a way of escalating into something way out of proportion to what the original minor irritation should dictate.
A demolition expert's car is towed away while he shops for his daughter's birthday. Again, we identify. The frustration that can build up in dealing with the bureaucracy. Another potentially "explosive" situation.
A rich kid hits a pregnant woman with his dad's car and leaves the scene. Dad concocts a plan to have his groundskeeper take the fall for the hit and run, after offering the man an enormous sum of money. The bribery expands to include the prosecutor and others. A tangled web we weave.
At her wedding party, a newlywed learns that her groom has been unfaithful to her with one of the guests at the reception. And here, for my money, we have the wildest and wackiest of the six episodes. She goes berserk in a way that only a woman scorned can do, ending up having sex with the cook on the roof of the building. You've never seen a "bridezilla" quite like this one. Can a relationship that gets off to such a dubious start possibly end up in that fairy tale land of happily ever after? You'll be surprised!
In the end, these are cautionary tales--reminding us that beneath the veneer of a polite and civilized society, most of us--under the right circumstances-- are a heartbeat away from reverting to our base animal nature. Which can be really scary. AND/OR FUNNY AS HELL.
Grade: B +
JILL'S TAKE
Where to begin. Tim has done a masterful job synopsizing all six of these outrageous stories. For me, they're all about revenge in some form or another. Getting even. With your parents, the government, your philandering mate. But what makes these tales "wild" for me are the unexpected twists and turns. They remind me of a story by Roald Dahl called "Lamb to the Slaughter" which has the same darkly comedic feel.
The idea for this particular piece was supposedly suggested to Dahl by his friend and fellow author Ian Fleming who said, "Why don't you have someone murder their husband with a frozen leg of mutton which she then serves to the detectives who come to investigate the murder?" A wonderful twist that we don't see coming.
I can't rave enough about this highly original film which was nominated this past year for Best Foreign Language Film. (It should've won, damnit!)
If I had to pick my favorite tale it would have to be the one where one driver (in a fancy Beamer) gives another driver (in a beat-up pickup truck) the bird and then calls him an asshole as he is finally able to pass the guy. Haven't we all done that? (Or wanted to!) Well, as fate would have it, the BMW's left rear tire blows out and the driver is mechanically inept. We, in the audience, are on the edge of our seats, waiting for the asshole to come chug-a-lugging along around the bend. And he does. What happens next not even Roald Dahl could dream up. I won't spoil it for you but I guarantee you won't be name-calling any more bad drivers for a long, long time!
Grade: A+
