Guerreros (Warriors, Latino Cinema)
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: D Film: B-
Daniel Calparsoro comes up with his own War genre film
with Guerreros, a 2002 film that is yet another picture that would have
not been greenlighted without the success of some recent Hollywood hit War
films. In this case, the action centers
around a Spanish troop on a mission in Kosovo.
They try to do their mission, but the humanity of one
soldier (Eloy Azorin) gets in the way, and the straightjacketed mission is compromised. In some ways, this may turn out to be for
the better, but getting home will be in the hardest way and not all will make
it. The “getting home” part is a very,
very tired cliché of this genre, especially these days. Though no pretension or condescending
melodrama is here, neither is questioning the idea of home. The Deer Hunter it is not, but it is
still a smart, nice alternative to the glut we have had and it gives us a story
from another place for a change involving non-U.S. or U.K. soldiers, which is
very welcome.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image has the same
degraded MTV look to many War and Non-War action films have suffered from
lately, but it is not always as obnoxious.
Josep M. Civit, A.E.C., delivers some different camera angles than we
usually see in these films, making it more watchable that the glut we have run
into. On this DVD, detail is decent, if
not extraordinary, thanks to the degrading.
Otherwise, this is fine for what we get. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo offers Pro Logic surrounds in both
the Spanish and English tracks, which is adequate, but 5.1 mix would have been
nice.
The film is still haunted by the action genre, and I could
not stop thinking about James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), but the
screenplay by Calparsoro and Juan Cavestany is not a copycat work and Guerreros
is worth catching. Some of the foreign
ethnic issues will go over the viewer’s heads in the U.S., but it deserves to
be seen as much as anything from the War genre lately.
- Nicholas Sheffo
