A Brilliant Conflict

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Thrilling film with a Spanish-all star-cast including intriguing situations , abstract incidents , female nudity and lots of loving scenes . It deals with Miranda (Victoria Abril) , a forty-years-old woman who is a crew member of a nightly radio programme where she is an anchor girl in the radio talk show . But Miranda results to be also a real sex-junkie . She and her hubby Felix (Carmelo Gomez) , a police Inspector , are parents of a little girl (a very young Dafne Fernandez) . In order to deal with her sex addiction , she signs up for group therapy in a clinic run by Pepe Santander (Adolfo Fernandez) . Also in the therapy group is Javier (Javier Bardem) , a film producer and script-writer and sex-addicted , too . The two misfits hit off and a deep sexual relationship ensues . But things go awry when Javier finds out that his cell phone sex trysts have been secretly taped and being distributed all over city and subsequently blackmailed . Later on , issues get a little more complicated when Javier to be aware his ex-spouse is living with his business colleague (Sergi Lopez) . In addition , while investigating a killing case regarding a man in drag , Felix discovers his unfaithful wife has affair with Javier who is prime suspect of murder . Enjoyable thriller about sexual obsession and killings ; plenty of emotion , rough sex , profanities , thrills , mayhem and surprise ending . In the beginning it displays a cool animated title sequence full of color and really brilliant .¨Entre Las Piernas¨ or ¨Between legs¨ is Manuel Gomez Pereira's return to top form , with an intelligent and engaging script which uses moving situations to give us a good movie in a high suspense and complexity and that kept me entertained for the almost two hours of duration . Interesting screenplay from Yolanda García Serrano , Juan Luis Iborra , Manuel Gómez Pereira , based on a novel by Joaquín Oristrell , all of them are prestigious Spanish Screen-writers/Filmmakers . The flick develops a lot of steamy affairs among various characters , as there is random sex , oral sex , sex standing up , sex on couch , sex in car , among others . Rightly agreeable and fun-filled , milestone thriller which neatly combines nail-biting set pieces , entertaining situations and amusement . Flawless story with a quartet of sensational protagonists : Javier Bardem , Victoria Abril , Carmelo Gomez and Sergi Lopez . As nice acting by Victoria Abril as a sex-crazed woman obsessed to pursue sexual encounters with men , she parades sexily at her best and more relaxed and enticing than ever . Javier Bardem also gives a terrific performance as a successful scriptwriter and producer who is a sex-phone obsessed , too . Pay attention as one couple of veteran actors very well played give portentous interpretations , as usual . The only flaw I can find is that some of the story lines are left unexplained and some character end up being implausible . Including an unforgettable plethora of secondaries such as : Javier Albalá , María Adánez , Carmen Balagué , Roberto Álvarez , Alberto San Juan , Manuel Manquiña , and Adolfo Fernandez . And brief appearances from Blanca Portillo , Cristina Brondo , Ginés García Millán and Antonio De La Torre , and several others . It was entertaining , great actors and a super soundtrack composed by recently deceased Bernando Bonezzi . Bonezzi composes an excellent score in Hitchcock/Bernard Herrmann style . Furthermore , a colorful and evocative cinematography by Juan Amoros . Rating : Better than average Spanish thriller , you will be glad to saw it . The picture will appeal to Javier Bardem/Victoria Abril fans . The movie won several Prizes and Nominations such as : Berlin International Film Festival 1999 Nominated Golden Berlin Bear Manuel Gómez Pereira ; Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival 1999 : Won Citizen's Choice Award Manuel Gómez Pereira and Turia Awards : Won Turia Award , Best Actor Carmelo Gómez .The motion picture was well written and directed by Manuel Gomez Pereira . He usually writes his films and occasionally for other directors as "What Makes Women Laugh?" by Joaquin Oristell who in "Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health" is screenwriter and producer ; both of them are ordinary collaborators . Pereira is an expert on comedies as ¨¨Rose sauce¨, Why do they call it love when they mean sex ?¨, ¨Mouth to mouth¨ , "All Men Are the Same" , though he also has made some drama as ¨The hanged man¨ and this ¨Between your legs¨ . His latest projects, however, tanked as "Off Key" starred by an American-all star cast but was a failure both economically and artistically or simply didn't deliver as "Atrévete y Verás" . Nowadays , he directs TV chapters as ¨Gran Reserva¨ and ¨Cheers¨ series .

I had to watch the film twice to make any sense of the mystery. So many loose ends, and the stories, within stories and so on, only managed to muddy the waters.So here is how I viewed it. Two people meet on a Monday in a sexual addiction support group. That night they proceed to have a mad sexual encounter in the back of a parked car in a parking lot which after a while the film reveals, has a dead body in the trunk. I got from the film, that Javier has already murdered the victim and stuffed him in the trunk and then goes to the support group to pick up an alibi as well as get lines for his scripts that he can no longer get from the phone sex encounters.Here is where the film lost me. What was up with the AIDS infected taxi driver? He is supposed to have taken a packet from somebody for a large sum of money. Could it be that the script and the scrap book that the victim had was being taken out to another country, and that's why the police cannot find any script in their search of the house? The point of the police officer who killed his wife, was inserted as a morality play I think, so that in the end, the husband let's the wife go away without harming her. Ipanema is probably the airlines suggesting that the couple ran off to Brazil to start a new life.The husband / policeman, inadvertently drops the vial containing the pubic hair he finds in his bathroom. That whole vial with the pubic hair thing completely escapes me. How did the hair get into his bathroom and what would that have proved.A thriller alright, but with a lot of loose ends that kept me guessing and confused.

Following in dialogue with the comments of the previous reviewer I will start saying that most films convey the prejudices of the society where they come from. As Bishonen has already mentioned, this film is quite homo-phobic, but you don't notice this until the end. Actually, it is difficult to put all the strings together until the end, and still, they don't all fit nicely. The tension of the drama is broken several times because the film appears to have been heavily edited thus missing a few important components.Yet, probably because of the editing too the film presents just the best acted scenes. They are indeed very well done, with a play of characters that is a pleasure to watch. The movie is sexy without taking too much time showing physical bodies engaged in sex (the first scene is the longest one). The essence of the movie's sexuality is captured in the powerful sexual urges that the protagonists have trapped within themselves, making them their slaves, and the main appeal of the movie.The thriller side of the movie was only good when it was linked with the issue of sexuality. Otherwise it was ordinary, probably because the scrip tried too hard to always hide the true identity of the killer, thus, giving little space for the observer to get deeply caught in the web of tensions.An interesting thing about the movie's narrative is that a story-maker (I say maker because in addition to a story-writer, he also "made" stories) resulted smarter and more cunning than businessmen, sharp detectives and even the "evil" people who were trying to hurt him. He even appears as too "innocent" throughout the film. In most other films when someone is having too much fun and trying to get away with it, at the end such person pays with interests. In this film, however, the conclusion plays out differently.I also felt betrayed at the end when I noticed the strong homophobic sentiment of the movie. It just shows how the Spanish society continues being so conservative. Like the prejudices behind this movie, the first negative reactions in Spain to the movie "Bad Education," where the main actors behave homosexually and bisexually, just serves to prove that a large number of people in Spain are still trapped by the sexual mores of the Catholic Church.But besides the issue of homosexuality, the smoking like chimneys, and the fact that the thriller could have been made better, the movie is one of the best in its genre. I specially liked Victoria Abril's performance. In Abril, the movie took a thirty-something women and made her the sexual object and the central sexual figure of the narrative. This contrasts with Hollywood's productions in which most females playing such roles are teenagers, twenty-something, or extremely glamorous. I think this movie illustrates by contrast how the U.S. society is so obsessed with youth, to the detriment of older women in particular.

Entre las piernas is not a bad attempt at creating a Hitchcock like mystery. The plus for this movie is definitely the charm of Victoria Abril. Not a bad sort for a 40 year old, aye? Abril plays Miranda who signs up for therapy in a Sex Addict Anonymous meeting. Another in therapy is a scriptwriter called Javier whose phone sex confessions were secretly taped and distributed to the depraved and perverted in Madrid. You may ask what would happen if you place sex-addicts in the same room. The result is a rapid sexual encounter for Miranda and Javier. Miranda's husband/cop, Felix eventually catches onto the illicit affair. The disturbing part is the "distasteful" rape scene towards the end. What would you do if you were Javier? I call it self-defence. The main question is, were you not Spotting Adam from the very beginning???THE CLUE: Whenever you sense something is not quite right, always look for the Adam's Apple. Do you? I do!