Marko Zaror – one of my favorite on-screen fighters. Bright, cinematic, with refined technique, intelligent, calm and integral. At the same time, clear progress in his acting has been noticeable recently. Because his new work is a film "Redeemer" ("Savior") was definitely on my list of expectations.
"Savior" is a parable about the killer Nikki Pardo, with the stylizations and allegories that accompany this form of storytelling. The characters are sketchy, grotesque, with very brief backstories.
The idea is definitely good, although not new. There were definitely opportunities to make an interesting and stylish action movie. Did it work out? In my opinion, it didn't work out.
The creators, strictly speaking, lacked direction, acting and script. There was a lack of dramatic depth, charismatic characters, normal dialogues, proper genre aesthetics and, finally, normal action. Careless, superficial and unexpectedly weak.
We will analyze these and other points in more detail and point by point.
1) A parable is a certain genre scheme. If she is heroic, then the most important thing is not to overdo it with pathos, otherwise it will be funny. Unless the goal was to make the viewer laugh. In our case, “Savior” is a low-budget action movie in which pathos stands firmly with one foot in the best traditions of Indian films. All these meaningful heroic angles, silhouettes, throwing out his arms before trying to shoot himself in the temple, meeting on the roads like Eastwood and so on - all this looks inappropriate and stupid, especially against the backdrop of provincial locations and crowds of all sorts of street goops that the main character scatters. In the first fight scene, when Pardo entered the lair of a gang of thugs, I thought that he was about to start singing songs. The pathos is accompanied by a strong naivety of the film. One can perceive this as a national cinematic feature or, again, a schematic parable form, because the plots of all Saror’s films are similar precisely in parable and naivety (we don’t take into account “Undisputed” 3 and “Machete”). But on screen it just looks immature when people say and do nonsense with serious faces.
2) Budget, style, aesthetics. The film's small budget is not the worst thing. Nowadays there aren’t really any expensive films coming out in the fighting genre. The problem with “The Savior” is that the creators cheapened the film where there was every opportunity not to do so. We decided to do a stylish color treatment, but in the end we went too far with bluish tints and exposure, it turned out serial or like in home-grown wedding videos (I have a very similar preset in Lightroom ;-)). They decided to add shooting to the film - as a result, the terrible drawn bullets and painted holes are visible even to the visually impaired. Thank God they didn't film the car chase. And again, everything happens in some factories, some construction sites and other favorite places of all low-budget bandits.
3) Dramatic depth and charismatic characters. Saror, of course, is a spectacular guy: a two-meter handsome man, he moves contrary to the laws of gravity, but in the film he is just some guy in a hood who decided that he was carrying out a mission delegated to him from above. Brief flashbacks showed us what the fuss was all about, but in the end it feels like the character’s life tragedy didn’t have much of an impact on him. And all these flashbacks were filmed simply terribly, with bad makeup, absolutely no camera work, plus everything was not very well acted.
4) Actor play. In this film, 99% of the cast perform poorly, including Saror himself, who has been noticeably growing in acting all this time, but in “The Savior” he seemed to go back. If he thinks that playing a broken character who carries the burden of life requires having a face like you’re taking a passport photo, then he’s deeply mistaken. It was Eastwood who could walk around with a stone face and the legendary squint, chewing a cigar and not talk. But Saror is not Eastwood. And the director Ernesto Diaz Espinosa - not Sergio Leone. And so, almost the entire screen time, the hero walks around with a blank face, either counting linear logarithms and quadratic trinomials in his head, or remembering the shopping list. But what is certainly unforgivable is that he manages to fight with the same face. It was Bolo Yong who was allowed to put on an indifferent face and seem to brush off his opponents without looking at them. But Saror produces a completely different effect - you completely stop empathizing with his character.
5) So we moved on to the main course - the fighting game. It seemed to me that he shouldn’t have let us down. But to hell with you, Ravenside. And there are several problems here. Despite the heaps of fake blood and broken enemy arms, the fights in “Savior” are similar to semi-contact sparring. The blows resemble only outlines of blows, and choking and painful holds are friendly handshakes, from which the heroes get out without any difficulty.
- Mass fights in “The Savior” are a traditional pattern for most films of clumsy opponents who obediently wait for their turn, approach one at a time and, without much resistance, receive graceful and leisurely cracks and fractures. And it is noticeable to the audience that they are mentally preparing for each blow they receive. And Saror’s spectacular flights and his technique don’t help – everything looks like glued fragments of blows or connections with inappropriate pauses and bluntness of the extras. There were good attempts to make an attack by three opponents at the same time, but from the point of view of rhythm, contact and coordination it was all unsuccessful. But there was an attempt, and I admit, it deserves respect, since this is rare in cinema now.
Fights "one on one" there are three in the film and they are more thorough, but at the same time they are also somewhat optional.
- The best of them is the first: Pardo VS young bandit in a tracksuit. It is the most rhythmic, the dynamics hardly sags, there are good bursts and combinations of blows, elements of MMA, and for the only time in the film the opponents are technically a match for each other. But this fight also has the stamp of neat sparring: the fighters dance opposite each other, fencing with their hands and feet, hitting the face without much damage, and when the MMA elements begin, the actors noticeably underperform: either Saror’s hand dangles aimlessly, or the enemy quietly removes his leg , helping Saror turn over. It generally takes a couple of seconds to get out of the grapples, which, firstly, reduces the value and realism of such grapples, leaving the feeling that opponents are only imitating them, and secondly, you don’t even have time to empathize with the hero: you only begin to watch how he will begin to overcome obstacles and get out of the painful position, but he has already gotten out, bending the enemy’s finger or pushing him in the ass, almost without changing his face. Or pay attention to the moment when the hero throws the enemy over himself, and when he lands, he trips him. This is a mockery, not a trip. It is not Saror who plays in this match, but his opponent.
- But there are also good moments. The principle of combining striking techniques, grips and work on the ground is good, the fight has dynamics, good musical accompaniment, the attempt to hit the legs was very well shot, and in general the camera work is not bad, you can see the really precise technique of both fighters: amplitude, trajectory, control movements.
- Second fight - Pardo VS bearded man in a leather jacket it turned out quite strange. Perhaps because the opponents have different rhythms and technical levels. The main character's opponent turned out to be somewhat clumsy and cumbersome, which is why the battle as a whole was clumsy, and its staging was reminiscent of the action films of the 80s and 90s.
The peculiarity of this fight is that everything was mainly focused on punches and low kicks, plus there was an attempt to create drama in the fight - the hero was looking for the key to his opponent’s weak points. As an idea, it’s not bad, because it’s a classic of the genre. Execution - there’s not even anything special to say, the gaze lingers, perhaps, only on Saror’s twisted passage under the enemy’s arm, and the final execution with fists to the body. And the music, again, is very good. But it wasn’t worth dropping an opponent like Frank Dukes dropped a sumo wrestler. Looks cheesy.
- Third fight - Pardo VS Alacran (Jose Luis Mosca) - this is generally a classic scheme of the 80s. The colorful Mosca here is a kind of elderly villain with the qualities of the main computer boss, insidious, with golden chains on his bare chest, silk pimp clothes, pointy shoes and in general the whole appearance of the hard-to-kill Tong Po. And everything seems to have been done correctly, but somehow frivolously. And Saror diligently gallops around the villain, showing excellent moves and combinations of kicks, and the villain delivers crushing blows, although his pants and shoes are funny, and the views around are beautiful - the wind, the sea, the reefs, the music is still quite competent. But it is not taken seriously and that’s all. There is no integrity or consistency in the fight; you can see how the best ones were selected from a bunch of takes and then glued together. And it’s unclear what the girl was doing on the ground all this time; she crawled towards the gun for half an hour.
Separately, it is necessary to say about post-processing, since this is a common disadvantage of all battles. An inappropriate strange rapid effect on jump strikes, which makes them seem drawn, and a completely inappropriate acceleration of the endings of the strikes, which makes them seem cut off, jerky, and unnecessarily re-edited.
As a result, “The Savior” disappointed me on all counts. The picture definitely had potential, but it turned out to be unbalanced, careless, there were many poorly combined elements in it, the pretentious synopsis turned out to be ill-conceived and unfinished, and I only want to watch one of the fights. All in all, it's clearly not Saror's best work.
Author: Ravenside
Especially for fight-films.info
The film is not great. And in the footsteps of Undisputed and Machete, Zaror is still seen as something of a higher quality than a widescreen showreel. However... if you remember the standards, not the fighting games of the 80s (which I grew up with), not the relatively high-quality ones with Van Damme, but others, then the film follows all the canons of the genre :) With quite good, although in some places it is very noticeably ostentatious and unrealistic, battles . I won't review it. I didn’t regret that I got acquainted. I wish Zaror a bigger project.
Great review!
I will add on my own behalf. I don’t even understand why we should make amateur films in all respects? From the down of the operator, to the editor, selecting the actors, director and of course the colorist (generally killed!!!). What did the authors want to show with this film?
This is a huge minus.
On the plus side, there is something interesting in the choreography. And the main character. It’s obvious that he’s trying, but... he’s got a gut... he can’t become either Jackie Chan, or Donnie Yen... or even Tony Jaa or... Sammo Hung. This is me figuratively. The Irony of Fate.
Jaidev,
I wouldn’t even compare him to Donny, Tony, Jackie... this is not entirely appropriate. This is not his way either. But I can say for sure: Saror definitely can and even should act in high-quality action films, he has everything for this, he can definitely do more than he does and look even better. I’m not at all saying that this is some kind of new superstar and a revolution in fight cinema, but it can definitely be on the level of Adkins, potentially even higher if he does everything right.
The state of cinema in Chile is in a deplorable state, so there is no need to talk about any great opportunities. In Hollywood, too, they don’t welcome you with open arms, and is this Hollywood really needed? What’s the use of it, except for the budget and film distribution. But even with little money and bad cameras, you can jump in over your head. It’s difficult, but Saror and Co. have already shot a fair number of films, but there’s still no progress.
Ravenside,
I absolutely agree with every word said. He has potential. Both in action and acting. And it’s not even about him. It's about the creators. One thing always amazes me - did the creators really not watch good action films at all? Everyone knows that a good cameraman and editor provide 50% of watchable action. Is it really so difficult to place those “action points”? To avoid confusion and chaos. When you look, you don't know what to focus on. And the fighting game is essentially not important anymore. It just blends in. I watch and don't care about the characters. Why such a movie? I repeat - Saror can do a lot. But not with these creators.
I completely agree with the review. I was really looking forward to this film and somehow didn’t see what I really wanted. I obviously won't be reviewing it. It's a pity.
cyclonus,
Well, we can say that there is one decent fight - Saror against a guy in a sweatshirt, although he is not without flaws, but there is something worth re-watching. But the rest is weak.
Why the hell did you disappoint?! What did you expect from him, “Raid”?! The budget was meager! We got out as best we could. This is a hundred times better than "Pound of Flesh", where 7 million dollars were spent, and the film looks like a maximum of 2 million.
I wouldn’t get too attached to the budget... otherwise, it turns out that you can’t expect anything at all from low-budget films, and you can throw them in the trash before release..
barsug,
I’ve already said it a hundred times, and so have you: there’s no point in blaming everything on the budget. It is important of course, but it does not determine the quality of the picture.
Russell Khyle,
Why are you writing without caps lock?