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Feast of the Goat review
:. Director: Luis Llosa
:. Starring: Isabella Rossellini, Tomas Milian
:. Running Time: 2:00
:. Year: 2005
:. Country: Peru
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On paper, this adaptation of a Mario Vargas Llosa novel centered around the regime of the cruel Dominican Republic leader, General Leónidas Trujillo, seemed like a solid premise, but after the opening sequence where a daughter played by Isabella Rossellini confronts her old father about his past, it was clear that the onscreen adaptation was another matter, giving me the feeling that I was watching a cheesy Hallmark movie of the week rather than a real piece of cinema. This wasn't surprising since director Luis Llosa is also known for masterpieces such as Anaconda, Sniper and The Specialist.
To be frank, Anaconda and Sniper are way more enjoyable and effective than this ballooned attempt at a serious politically-charged oeuvre. Filming this story like an elephant in a china shop, Llosa hammers us with the kind of overdramatic stagy scenes and clichés that would provoke cries and applauds among telenovela fanatics and a mixture of pain and giggles for any film buff.
It must be said that the director isn't helped by the bad dialogues and poor acting that stuff his film — the presence of Steven Bauer and Tomas Milian, a master at overacting, should give you enough of a clue. Milian's Trujillo is grotesque rather than causing fear, which highly undermines the purpose of this film and is even more disappointing as the history of the Dominican Republic hasn't often been treated onscreen unlike trendier subjects such as Cuba; In the Time of the Butterflies, starring Salma Hayek and Edward James Olmost as Trujillo, was another disappointment
Mister Llosa should go back to playing with snakes and guns, and leave history and politics alone unless of course he plans to take over Roger Corman and Trauma's empires.
Fred Thom
 Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
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