Daniel Monzón's EL NIÑO tackles drug trafficking in Gibraltar -- major & minor from various angles

Writer/director Daniel Monzón (shown below) is the man who, back in 2009 gave us one of the best prison movies ever made, Cell 211, a film alert to every-thing from prison life (and death) to Spanish politics, economics and sociology. If his newest endeavor, EL NIÑO, does not come up to that level, it should be no surprise. The film is plenty good in its own right and should please genre aficionados who appreciate complex thrillers offering an extra dose of humanity and depth of characterization.

That depth is particularly evident in the title character, called El Niño (the child) due to his childlike glee behind the wheel of both car and boat. Though he drives like a kid at an amusement park, he does it with speed and assurance. As played by Jesús Castro, making his movie debut, Niño is shown from the first to be carefree -- why not?!-- but also a tad more thoughtful than some of his peers. This thoughtfulness grows into a kind of maturity as the movie plays out, making Niño a character we come to care and root for, if only slowly. And Señor Castro (shown below) appears to possess the kind of talent, sex appeal and charisma that just might make him a star.

Since his debut here, in fact, the actor has made another film and had a continuing role in a TV series. (Something similar happened to the star of Cell 211, Alberto Ammann, after his performance under the direction of Señor Monzón.)

Another plus for Monzón's movie is its exotic location: the island of Gibraltar, complete with scenic beauty and even its own special wild monkeys. A British Overseas Territory located between Spain and Morocco at the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea, Gibraltar, with its economy fueled by gambling, tourism and the shipping industry, would seems a fine place for all kinds of drug smuggling. And so, according to this movie, it is.

Said to be based on real events, El Niño begins as the police (above) trail a dockyard worker, a fellow they're quite sure is part of a smuggling ring. Then we switch to the young folk, Niño and his pal, Compi (Jesús Carroza, below, left) who are looking for some way out of the crap Spanish economy and into a little wealth for a change.

Back and forth we go between police and youth until the stories of the two are completely entwined, and we're somehow rooting for both parties. This is one of Monzón's strengths -- showing us the whole picture that enables us to understand and care about opposing sides. "Can't they be rich without being crooks?" one character asks another, who answers, "I don't know. But I don't think so." Yeah, right. This movie is as much about the lives and needs of the underlings, as it is about the smuggling operation.

We also get to see and meet the upper echelons of crime and law enforcement, as portrayed by Moussa Maaskri and Ian McShane (representing the former) and Sergi López (three photos up, at left, representing the latter). The guy and gal who do the police grunt work are played by the always terrific Luis Tosar (he of the mammoth eyebrows, above) and Bárbara Lennie (below).

The only other important woman in the cast is Niño's girlfriend, played by the beautiful Mariam Bachir., who plays the sister of boy's third partner, Halil (newcomer Saed Chatiby, below, center). This is definitely a movie about the boys, but as such it is mostly very well done. Also in the cast in that fine Spanish actor Eduard Fernández as another member of the police force on the case.

As confined and confining as was Cell 211, El Niño is spacious and expanding. This presents a bit of a problem, however, as the film comes in at 136 minutes -- a little long, perhaps, and yet those minutes are never boring. Expect car and boat chases (below, pursued at sea by helicopter!), suspense, betrayals (on both sides of the fence) and more. As in Cell 211, the accumulation of detail that comprises events and characters makes for a nourishing movie meal that offers a resounding, if believably depressing, dessert.

El Niño -- from Distrib Films US -- opens this Friday, April 17, at Laemmle's Music Hall 3, and then has its digital platform debut on Tuesday, May 5, via iTunes, Vudu  and Google Play.  

DVD stay-away: CONTRABAND proves the hands-down dumbest movie of the year

Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur has made three very good movies in his home country (101 Reykjavík, The Sea and Jar City) and one that's pretty good (Inhale) and another that's truly godawful (CONTRABAND, out on DVD/Blu-ray this past week) here in the USA. (TrustMovies has not seen his earlier made-in-the-USA movie A Little Bit of Heaven so he can't speak for the quality of that one.) Rather than posit that the moviemaker is uncomfortable off his home base, I would instead suggest that Baltasar, shown below, ought not let go of the writing chores completely, as he has done with Contraband. (He either adapted or co-wrote his other films--except for Inhale--and his absence dearly shows.)

If Contraband were created (deliberately, that is) as a comedy, along the lines of The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight or The Ladykillers, it might have worked. That would have taken some wit, however, which is in very short supply here. As is irony. Or humor of any kind. When everyone in a movie -- good guys, bad guys, even guys we don't give a shit about -- can't do a single thing correctly, we either start to laugh aloud, or soon give up on what quickly becomes an extremely stupid movie. Surely someone can do something right here? No, they can't. When they finally do (in the case of the lead character played by Mark Wahlberg, below left, with co-star Ben Foster), the results are so utterly unbelievably and simple-minded as to beggar imagination.

The movie looks good, however (Barry Ackroyd shot it) and moves fast, though not fast enough for its nearly two-hour running time. Locations are nice (New Orleans and Panama City), and the cast is filled with actors who ought to know better - from Kate Beckinsale to Giovanni Ribisi and Lukas Haas to Diego Luna. By the time this movie ends, given the stupidity on display, nobody -- good, bad or indifferent -- should still be alive. That they are is a monument to dumb, lazy screenwriting. Supposedly based on an original Icelandic film called Reykjavik-Rotterdam (a hit on its home turf that ran a mere 88 minutes and in which, coincidentally, filmmaker Kormákur starred as an actor but did not direct), this overblown excuse for a thriller simply embarrasses.

Contraband is out now on DVD and Blu-ray, for sale or rental, and is probably available on streaming of some sort. Check out the usual suspects if you insist on seeing it.

MR. NICE -- Bernard Rose's Oxford grad/ drug dealer/family man bio-pic is... nice

Bernard Rose is a man who clearly should stay away from BIG movies. His version of Anna Karenina and his Beethoven bio-pic enhanced neither subject, yet his smaller movies have often been surprisingly interesting. The early Paperhouse (1988) quickly acquired a cult following, as did his entry into the horror genre Candyman, while his 2008 film The Kreutzer Sonata proved one of the better movie imaginings of male jealousy. Now comes a film that combines some of the "bigness" of the Rose-of-yore with the filmmaker's storytelling skills, and the result is a relatively painless paint-by-number detailing of the "facts" of a very bizarre British life.

The word facts, above, is in quotes because the film -- directed by Mr. Rose (shown at right) and also adapted by him from the supposedly autobiographical book (of the same title as the movie and written by its main character, Howard Marks) -- leans pretty heavily on the gospel according to Mr. Marks. And while this son-of-the-working-class who managed to get himself an Oxford education gives himself full discredit for being a lousy husband and father (early on, at least), the movie also revels is his attractiveness, humor and general ain't-I-just-one-terrific-guy loveableness.

That Marks is played very well by one of cinema's best actors at doing crazy, Rhys Ifans (above), helps matters enormously. Ifans is surrounded by some excellent support, as well: especially David Thewlis as IRA bad boy Jim McCann (below, with gun) and Christian McKay (Orson in Me and Orson Welles) as an Oxford chum.

Women's role are stock and could have been mailed in by most any actress. Chloë Sevigny gets the biggest of them (as Mrs. Nice, below, center) and is properly forgettable. My biggest gripe, casting-wise, is the use of that great Spanish actor Luis Tosar while neglecting to give him a decent role.

The movie skips around from England and Afghanistan (below) to Hollywood and back, and despite its two hour length the pace seldom slackens, and -- for those of us who knew little to nothing about Howard Marks, this is time interestingly spent.

Mr. Nice, running 121 minutes, opens tomorrow -- Friday, June 3 -- in New York City at the Cinema Village. One would imagine it might be opening elsewhere, too, but I can find no information on the site of its supposed distributor MPI Media Group.  Your move.