Critic Reviews
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Geoff Andrew, Time Out
The desolate Edward Hopper nightscapes provide an effective context...
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Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
The Argentinean actor Ricardo Darín (The Secret in Their Eyes) has an almost Bogart-like gift for playing world-weary rotters with a core of nobility.
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Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
This is a film that's musical with the cracking of bones and crashing of cars.
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Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
Carancho begins to accelerate with alarming speed - and doesn't stop until the startling, bitterly ironic final frame.
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Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
A no-frills version of a perennial dark story: how love of a sort can take root in a festering place.
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Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
A stark, compelling crime drama, shot in lurid close-ups and leading inexorably toward a devastating end.
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Philip French, Observer [UK]
The film's plotting is at times ragged and muffled, though this might be intentional, a way of suggesting the endless ramifications of the endemic corruption. The performances, however, have depth and resonance.
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Grant Rollings, Sun Online
What starts as a slow-burning series of minor dramas slips into a high-octane gear in the final act.
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Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]
Some movies are described as explosive: this is positively eardrum-perforating.
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Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph
The statistic that 8,000 Argentinians die in traffic accidents every year gives his film a context, but Trapero didn't need to work quite so hard to prove it.
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Nigel Andrews, Financial Times
The film's bitterness of vision may owe as much to style as to content: this is not King Lear, it does not go deep. But a vision of sorts it is, harsh and haunting.
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Matt Bochenski, Little White Lies
Bruising, moving and utterly compelling.
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Henry Fitzherbert, Daily Express
An absorbing if flawed thriller set in Buenos Aires...
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David Parkinson, Empire Magazine
It's relatively effective as a thriller, but rarely welcomes the viewer into its world of legalities and despair.
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, Scotsman
[A] grimly satisfying noir...
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Jonathan Crocker, Total Film
Scenes spark then fade, until the sinuous climax arrives with collision force.
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Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews
...this is not just about a stormy romance. It also deals with personal integrity, or lack there of, corruption within the Argentine insurance industry and the violence that it spawns.
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Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix
Trapero's soggy, misguided, derivative melodrama was, somehow, Argentina's Official Selection as Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards.
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Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews
... tips into melodrama with characters so desperate they are driven to extremes, but that's noir territory. It's an entertaining, albeit disturbing, ride with a helluva final destination.
Read all 19 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
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Very well done. Interesting storyline. Rather gritty, which always attracks me. I have to say...Ricardo Darin is becoming one of my top favorite Spanish actors. Just about everything I have seen him in I have liked.
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A spectacular thriller, gripping and visceral, directed with intense realism by Trapero, who uses a handheld camera and long sequence shots to simulate a documentary style and keep the audience incredibly tense. The last scene is fulminating, almost driving the viewers to a heart… More
A spectacular thriller, gripping and visceral, directed with intense realism by Trapero, who uses a handheld camera and long sequence shots to simulate a documentary style and keep the audience incredibly tense. The last scene is fulminating, almost driving the viewers to a heart attack.
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In "Carancho," Lujan(Martina Gusman) is a doctor practicing medicine in an ambulance. On one call, she helps out at an automobile accident. And it's an especially good thing she is there because Sosa(Ricardo Darin), a good samaritan, also needs medical care because he… More
In "Carancho," Lujan(Martina Gusman) is a doctor practicing medicine in an ambulance. On one call, she helps out at an automobile accident. And it's an especially good thing she is there because Sosa(Ricardo Darin), a good samaritan, also needs medical care because he just had the snot beaten out of him. As her colleagues explain it to her, he is a 'vulture' who works on behalf of the Foundation as a way to scam the insurance industry in automobile accidents while the victims get a small percentage of any winnings and do not like to be interrupted in their moment of grief. Sosa also comes in handy in getting the patient admitted to the hospital, even without insurance, immediately endearing him to Lujan.
With a plot that comes and goes as it pleases, "Carancho" is a compelling and violent character study of two immensely flawed people. Despite the generational differences, there is a mutual attraction between them and it helps that Sosa can cook. They also need each other since they are trapped in one truly messed up system. According to the film, nobody in Argentina can survive on an honest living. Lujan has to shoot up just to stay awake for the epic shifts that are required of her. Lacking insurance, people stage accidents to make a quick buck but that is increasingly dangerous as the statistics point out. And while Sosa is good at his job, he is still burdened by a conscience and sickened at what he sees, wanting out and his old legal license back. Since he refuses to give details, it is probably a smart guess that it was something really bad that got him disbarred.
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Perhaps the fall-spring relationship doesn't quite work but Carrancho is an interesting character sketch of a horrid character. How far will he go to profit at his trade?
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In a country where thousands die every year on road accidents, there are always voltures waiting around to profit from it. The film treads between corruption and personal integrity. And although it seems indifferent at first, but as it unravels it gets more gutsy and ends with a… More
In a country where thousands die every year on road accidents, there are always voltures waiting around to profit from it. The film treads between corruption and personal integrity. And although it seems indifferent at first, but as it unravels it gets more gutsy and ends with a climatic bang.
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Pablo Trapero's thriller Carancho, introduced corrupt people who profit from victims of car accidents. Among them is Sosa, played by Ricardo Darín, an ex lawyer who lost his license by working for thugs who scam victims for their insurance. Luján (Martina Gusman), was a… More
Pablo Trapero's thriller Carancho, introduced corrupt people who profit from victims of car accidents. Among them is Sosa, played by Ricardo Darín, an ex lawyer who lost his license by working for thugs who scam victims for their insurance. Luján (Martina Gusman), was a beautiful young doctor who was at the beginning of her career and must work emergency rooms and ride in ambulances to help the injured in order to gain experience to become a respected doctor. They met over an accident, where Luján was helping a victim and Sosa was planning to use the victim for his plans. Both Sosa and Luján seemed to fight their own demons, Luján happened to be a drug addict, while Sosa endangered the lives of innocent people to satisfy the bosses to whom he worked for.This was the difference between their passion for each other and their participation in the dark crime of 'caranchos, resulting in an ending few will predict.
Read all 6 featured audience ratings
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