By Roberto Salazar
@Yahomie_Robert19
The Dallas International Film Festival has provided us with one of the most suspenseful, emotional, and action-packed films this year with “GUNMAN”. Directed by Christian Tapia Marchioni (La Noche Mas Fria, Warriors), the film takes us on a long and eventful night with El Galgo, played by Sergio Podeley. He gets framed for the murder of the leader of the neighborhood after accepting a job offer to do a drive-by shooting for old cartel colleagues. He is then hunted down by gunmen.
Similar to “1917,” the entirety of the film is shot as a continuous take. Making us feel like we’re spending every minute with our characters in real time. This was accomplished by cinematographer Martín Sapia, known only for (Only You, Simona), and Marchioni, who also edited the film.
He mentioned in a video at the end of the movie that they shot in the outskirts of Buenos Aires in Argentina. The residents and business owners of the area provided full support for the filmmakers and allowed them to shoot such intense sequences. According to Marchioni, some shots were filmed for a couple of miles long, showing us that even though the film is heavily edited, they still committed to capturing long takes.
Podeley was the heart of the. Following him the whole night, we experience different versions of his character. From beginning to end, you can see the changes this man goes through as the night goes on. My favorite scenes were the ones where he gives us raw emotions. After this man survives hell, eventually all of that stress and fatigue catch up to him, making Podeley’s character give us intense personal moments.
As the film progresses, we are introduced to a side story in which the residents decide to stand up against the cartel’s reign when they find out about the death of the godmother. This was my favorite segment of the movie. They took a different turn when it came to depicting gangsters in this film. Instead of giving us a glorified crew, they instead went and showed us a dark, violent, relentless version of these people.
This made us, as an audience, sympathize with the residents who want to stand up and fight for change. Both Ramiro Blas (The Passenger, La Fuga) and Maite Lanata (The One, 100 Days to Fall in love), although they had short screen time, definitely had no small roles.
They have a father and daughter duo and are the ones leading the rebellion against the cartel street thugs. As great as this movie was, it did come with some flaws. For one, we get a plot twist at the end that, for spoiler’s sake, I won’t reveal, but after the reveal, it just felt disappointing.
Especially since, after everything Podely has been through, it didn’t work as far as making sense for the character/story.
Another thing for me is that the ending overall felt underwhelming. Sure, we do close it off with everything coming to a full circle, but I was left feeling empty-handed with the father and daughter storyline. I wasn’t sure what message the filmmakers were trying to convey to us regarding the fight against the cartel world, but I was under the impression that standing together and fighting back and believing in hope was the message up until the end, where everything just went a different route.
GUNMEN was a roller-coaster film, taking us through ups and downs and excitement all over the place. Cinema at its finest.
