TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL // A FILM REVIEW OF "EL CINCO"
The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, runs April 15th-26th and features hundreds of features, documentaries, short films, and special events all throughout downtown New York City. The ArtsWire Weekly's three featured reviewers Mateo, Derek, & Chrisena are hitting the festival and bringing the reviews right to you! What you should see and what you should skip...
Playing professional sports brings you fame, fortune, can introduce you to many a splendid thing. But can it buy happiness for the long run? Argentinian football player Patón (Esteban Lamothe) is itching for something new, something different near the beginning of EL CINCO (EL 5 DE TALLERES). He’s a somewhat well known footballer on a Division C team, in his mid-thirties, the Captain of the Talleres, and has just been expelled from most of the season due to roughhousing on the field. Now he has time to think about his current situation and decides he just may want to walk away from it all. But when all you’ve known is football, what is there to do after? That’s the question posing him and his wife Ale (Julieta Zylberberg). But will any decision not involving football satisfy him?
More or less, that’s the entire film, written & directed by Adriàn Biniez. It’s a simple story of a man near the end of his career reevaluating himself. It’s charming, simply told, but slight. There’s no real meat to the story, nor much to really fully digest. Lamothe is great in the lead role, adding a natural charisma much needed for the sweet but temperamental character. Zylberberg is equally as charming, showcasing Ale as his true rock to lean on, and their chemistry is great, adding a natural ease to their already long relationship. For being a movie about Football, we don’t really see much of the game at all. The game turning event at the beginning of the film (Patòn’s expulsion from the game) isn’t even seen, nor is any game until near the end. As a character study, it’s sweet and simple but I wish it had gone further and showcased more of what his life is and was. Brief scenes with his parent’s shows an interesting story lying under the surface with his father but its never really explored. Still, if you don’t mind your soda’s to be diet, it’s not a terrible way to spend the afternoon. You’ll just most likely forget it almost immediately after.
VERDICT: ON THE FENCE
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Adriàn Biniez STARRING Esteban Lamothe, Julieta Zylberberg, Nestór Guzzini.
Playing as part of The 2015 Tribeca International Film Festival. For tickets & schedules: http://www.tribecafilm.com
MATEO MORENO recently won a bet on who could hold their breath the longest underwater. He won the bet, having beat local loudmouth Jimmy "Thunderbird" Thomas with a record breaking "fourteen minutes." True, part of that time was him unconscious and the other part was him being revived, but he still counts it, and is now $20 richer. Take THAT Thunderbird! He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.