Review: Lucia, Lucia (**)

LUCIA, LUCIA
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): **


LUCIA, LUCIA (LA HIJA DEL CANIBAL), by writer and director Antonio Serrano,
is a frantic film that will either have you following the madcap adventure
with excitement or leave you at the station. I never cared about the wild
and wacky characters, even if they did talk a mile a minute with boundless
energy. The movie seemed more interested in getting to the next plot turn
than in telling a coherent and compelling story.



As the movie begins, a middle-age woman named Lucía (Cecilia Roth) has just
lost her husband. About to get on a plane with her, he disappears. Soon,
however, Lucía gets good news. Her husband didn't vanish on his own. He
was kidnapped. And the news gets better still. The obscenely large ransom
of twenty million pesos that the kidnappers are demanding happens to be just
exactly the amount that her husband has stashed away in a safety deposit box
that she didn't know he had. The long middle section of the story has
Lucía, aided by her newfound friends Félix (Carlos Álvarez-Novoa) and Adrián
(Kuno Becker), trying without much luck to hand off a large suitcase filled
with the cash.



Félix is an old revolutionary, who, at various times, trained with Castro
and fought against Franco. His long-winded ramblings quickly become
tiresome. Adrián is a twentysomething hunk who likes to quote the Bible,
Thomas Jefferson, ancient Greek philosophers and just about everyone. His
quotes are usually just slightly off-topic but fun nonetheless.



As the editor flitted from shot to shot with spastic delight, I became
increasingly less interested in the picture. This much can be said in the
movie's favor -- the acting is all good. It is everything else that is the
problem.



LUCIA, LUCIA runs 1:40. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles. It
is rated R for "sexuality, language and brief drug use" and would be
acceptable for teenagers.



The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the
Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.



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