Mandrill at Fantastic Fest. Review by Alex Billington

17.12.2009EvilDollaR

I always like it when festival new products surprise me and, fortunately, that’s what happened today. I came across a great Chilean film called Mandrill, Ernesto Diaz Espinosa's next film after Mirageman. Espinoza managed to create “Mandrill” in such a way that you can reappear at Fantastic Fest without any remorse. I don’t even know why, but I had no idea what to expect from him. What I saw was an action movie with thriller elements, combining Bond films, Italian westerns and 70s themes in a stunningly entertaining manner. This is one of the best films I saw at the festival.

The role of Mandrill went to Chilean actor and fighter Marco Zaror. He's a James Bond-style hitman without the British sophistication. The plot is extremely simple - after the next order, he finds out that his employer is the person responsible for the death of his parents, and now he seeks revenge. Before that, however, he has to fall in love with his beautiful daughter (Celine Raymond). No matter how strange it may sound, intricacies of the plot await you ahead, the end of which will be completely unpredictable, and this cannot but rejoice. In the finale, the tension subsides slightly, but there are still no stupid moments as such.

I like this movie really I liked it. I'm not sure if it's the pre-screening hype or my innate love of all things Bond (or anything that resembles Bond), but I was torn. It's basically the crazy '70s, packed with just about everything: lots of martial arts, poker, jammers, Colts, hot women, fast cars, everything Bond, but it's all straight from Chile (and Peru). Saror performed his own stunts and preferred hand-to-hand combat and even disco dancing to pistol shooting. The excellent balance of humor, action and plot works brilliantly.

Naturally, there were a couple of small budget-related drawbacks: filming on a digital camera, a weak plot in places (this is not a problem for such action films) and other controversial issues (anime static frames were used too often in transitions between episodes). But regardless, it's still a damn good action movie, especially considering it's from Chile. Saror's acting and fighting skills were, in my opinion, better than Espinoza's directing, but that's not a big problem. I can imagine how much better the film would have been without these unnecessary transitions. After correcting the above shortcomings, the film may turn out to be one of my favorites on the list of new foreign cinema!

Rating: 9/10

Author: Alex Billington
Source: marko-zaror.com
Translation: EvilDollaR

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Tags: Mandrill, Marko Zaror, Ernesto Diaz Espinosa

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