Wonderful character development!

Good movie but grossly overrated

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

............................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA and ORLANDO, FL Equal parts Tarantinoesque film noir, Greek tragedy plus sociocultural satire, Nicontina makes for a rousingly entertaining 90 minutes. Populated by a rather oddly colorful assortment of characters whose lives, in one way or another, revolve around cigarettes or attempting to curtail their use. Thusly, "Nicotina" is a passive cast member. What really makes this work is the quality of the ensemble performance and the uncanny sense of timing of both director (Argentine Hugo Rodriguez-Producer/The Violin) and editor (Alberto de Toro). Diego Luna (Y Tu Mama Tambien) delivers an Oscar nomination worthy performance as the Uber-creepy obsessive voyeur criminal nerd next door. With a Classic flair noir twist, Lolo(Luna)learns a painful Karmic lesson on the nefarious repercussions of his techno-voyeurism. 8.5*...ENJOY/DISFRUTELA!!!Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome! KissEnglishPasto@Yahoo.com

Nicotina: 5 out of 10: Nicotina represents a black comedy tradition that has been alive and well in Mexico for over fifty years. Death is around every corner and it is a punch line to boot. All the men are womanizers and many of the women are no better. Director Hugo Rodríguez and Writer Martín Salinas took this beloved tradition and married it to its distant cousin, the Quentin Tarantino crime film.It is a decent fit. The basic plot is that a Mexican criminal gang is switching computer bank codes with a Russian gangster for diamonds. I do not think I am spoiling anything by pointing out that not everything goes as planned. The two criminal gangs end up involving the computer geek that downloaded the data. His next door neighbor, a sexy and promiscuous cellist, played by Marta Belaustegui; Her conductor, a possible future sugar daddy: a plant toting upstairs neighbor: a pharmacist couple, with a beautiful saintly wife played admirably by Carmen Madrid: and a beauty shop couple, with an evil harridan wife played chillingly by Rosa María Bianchi: plus the occasional police officer and a scary dog.Some of the camera tricks can be fancy without any underling purpose, and I have not seen this much pastel neon on buildings since that Don Johnson episode of True Hollywood Stories. Overall, the film is nice. It is a pleasant, good time. It is not particularly scary, thrilling, funny, sexy, or clever and that is it’s only real fault. There is nothing terrible memorable in the ninety odd minutes of movie. Oh and do not watch if you are trying to quit smoking. I have never seen a movie so relentless in its promotion of tobacco. It is like watching Eat Drink Man Woman while trying to diet,

As the director Hugo Rodriguez referred the film by Quentin Tarantino at the preview screening at Landmark Sunshine Cinema in New York City (August 18, 2004), this new Mexican film is highly influenced by Pulp Fiction, similar to the producer Martha Sosa Elizondo's previous film Amores Perros. Most Pulp-Fiction-like ingredients--interlocked stories about four groups of people (not nonlinear, though), two gangsters' insignificant conversation on smoking and coincidence, extreme close-ups of objects--are so light that the audience may feel even irritated. Drawing the viewers' attention to a specific happening on a part of the screen with a rectangle is cheesy and redundant; even without it the viewers would look at what the filmmakers want them to watch. The title may be inappropriate as cigarette doesn't have a significant meaning in the plot.

I like this movie. Besides of the great cast, great actors and performance, the story is very nice. There are not many dark-humor movies made in mexico.Very well done. Good budget, i guess.The story reminds me of movies like "Snatch" (2000) or "Pulp Fiction" (1994), and we don't get stories like that very often in our mexican movies.An easy, viewer-frendly, "im-gonna-have-a-good-time-for-a-couple-of-hours" type of movie.