Perfect cast and a good story

Absolutely Fantastic

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Not brilliant now, may be later. This unassuming piece of work, reunites big names, a pathetic lawyer, a musician, and a false artist of our times (played by the director in the fictional parts), showing how post-truth is here to stay.A prismatic piece, that uses it cinematic media as message, not falling into the classical arrogance of other films playing the same game.

This film reminded me of the Dogma film "Hotel" (2001 dir: Mike Figgis) where many American movie stars appear mostly as cameos, or barely as part of the plot. There was, however a plot there, at least. On this film, we have "Kubrick-like" intertitles preceding scenes, all about the planning of the filming of a movie, which is being filmed as this is a movie within a movie anyway. The dialogue for the first half is - as always - about "the evil military that killed people indiscriminately", without a full explanation of WHY and WHAT HAPPENED. This is as if you were learning about World War II and "there was a lot of killing going on" but absolutely no explanation of what happened, just tidbits of talk. Imagine every German film ever made from the end of the war to the present, in which they talk about Nazis. Every film. Or every American movie talking about Vietnam... even it if is a romantic comedy. They try, and fail, to make this some type of artsy film, some very recognizable names are in it, but the dialogue goes nowhere. They try to be "French New Wave" but with less plot, and a lot of scenes about Buenos Aires that serves more as a fantasyland attraction rather than the presentation of a city, or the history of the country, or even some type of plot. A complete waste of time and talent. Go see "Hotel" instead. There is a scene in which a girl tells John Cusack that Argentina is stuck in the past, 35 years back, and cannot move forward. Such is the state of filmmaking in ARG today. Stuck in the 1980s and forever trying to sanitize (but failing in omission) the event s that CAUSED the military coup of 1976. The Argentitnes need at least another 50 years to catch up to the rest of the world. This is a piece of garbage, and frankly, had the coup never occurred, Argentina would have been another Lebanon of the 1980s or the Venezuela of today. Che Guevara and Maoists forever admiring what is unclean only because it is "revolutionary" - conveniently ignoring that ARG, for all its faults, became rich and prosperous thanks to the European immigrants that worked - and di dnot pick the quick fix of a revolution to advance the country. For the lazy and the feeble minded, the Cuban revolution is a thing to be worshipped. These are still dangerous times!

Warm little movie. A collage of digressions and partial thoughts, no apt for who is looking to be caught in a melodrama. To see great actors playing with such a freedom, makes me think on the cynical and shallow part of this art form.As soon we have the chance to liberate our mind, we dream, and snore. As soon we seat front of the TV, we are forced to dream the dreams others, sometimes just money makers…This movie have much of a dream, but is enough imperfect, rough, and sometimes nonsensical, that you can hear your own mind without feeling being used.

This movie belongs to the "film within a film" genre that opened up half a century ago with Fellini's 8 1/2. It features John Cusack and other American actors summoned to Buenos Aires to make a film that, we are told, experiments with cinematic language. The story is improvised (there is a script but nobody seems to take it seriously) and some scenes (like in Godard's La Chinoise) actually belong to the film within, as the point of view changes and we see the cameras rolling and the booms in place. Sequences are announced with title cards, also in Godard's style. The view of Buenos Aires and its people is that of an average American tourist; there are some comments about Peronism and the 1976-1982 military dictatorship but there is no depth or meaning in them. Everything we see or hear is capricious and at best whimsical, at worst pretentious and at times boring.Al Pacino plays the mysterious (and somewhat devilish) long distance mastermind of the project, He gets the best lines and makes the most of them; the short time he is on screen is the best part of the movie.The movie ends up saying nothing significant. Although some ideas may be interesting, it it difficult to gauge the intentions of the director. All in all, an unsatisfactory film.