"Hermano"

Image result for hermano reviewVenezuelan filmmaker Marcel Rasquin's Hermano is a well-meaning melodrama, equal parts heartfelt and contrived. Things start off somewhat queasily: En route to a birthday party with his mother, Graciela (Marcela Girón), young Julio (Eliú Armas) overhears the cries of a newborn baby emanating from a trash heap. The camera lingers unnecessarily on this image, revealing not only a creepy animatronic orphan, but filmmaking of the unimaginatively button-pushing sort, unable to develop or contextualize a scenario, frontloading easy drama at the expense of profundity. After a moment of hesitation upon discovering the abandoned tot, the two take him in as one of their own. Sixteen years later, Julio and his adopted brother, Daniel (Fernando Moreno), are competing for the championship match in a local soccer league, an opportunity that affords them the attention of a professional scout looking for "fresh legs." Julio's involvement with the local underworld sees to their family's food and shelter, but the reckless territoriality of one of his brothers in crime ends with a stray bullet in Graciela's chest, and puts the quietly bystanding Daniel on the spot when Julio nearly goes mad with his thirst for revenge.
Image result for hermano review Image result for hermano review
Like its crude opening scene, Hermano's portrayal of random violence is borderline tasteless in its calculated obviousness, and all the more so considering the film's purportedly lived-in, faux-vérité style (like Paul Greengrass trying to pass himself off as Charles Burnett). Occasional condescension aside, Hermano is a curious oddity that could have benefited from a few minor nip/tucks. A pregnancy subplot intended to further illuminate Daniel's sense of honor comes off as pandering and only serves to distract from the core proceedings, while a climatic turn of events remains strangely uncommented on. Though eye-rolling metaphors about the goals life scores against us are abundant, there are some choice shots (the departed Graciela's legs) and cuts that suggest a natural eye for composition and movement. There are also moments of unexpected resonance: An impromptu dance session captures the awkwardness of adolescent bonding, and a violent exchange between a hotheaded Julio and his ruthless but enlightened cartel boss speaks to the multitude of ways love can be expressed.
Hermano's ambitions ultimately break even with its mawkish ineptitude, and while the result is certainly more impressive than that of the average underdog sports film, the lingering aftertaste is that of what could have been.
...
“Hermano,” the heartfelt first feature from the Venezuelan filmmaker Marcel Rasquin, follows two soccer-playing boys whose striking talents offer escape from the slums of Caracas.
Unrelated but brought up as brothers, Julio (Eliú Armas) and the younger, less assured Daniel (Fernando Moreno), are closer than many joined by blood. Attracted by their soccer-pitch synchronicity, a scout for the Caracas Football Club offers them a tryout, but Julio, deeply embedded with a drug-dealing gang, is more vulnerable to distractions than his straight-arrow sibling. When personal tragedy intervenes, it’s left to Daniel to try to save both boys from the laws of the streets and the cruelties of circumstance.
The sports-as-savior theme is an old one, but this confident movie, alternately volatile and tender, coats its clichés in winningly natural performances and Enrique Aular’s kinetic photography. Game sequences hurtle forward in breathless bursts of motion, and scenes between the boys and their loving single mother (Marcela Girón, who also plays in a soccer league in Caracas) are handled with warm authenticity. In the background the family’s precarious hillside shantytown (largely filmed in the Petare slums) has a smudged, ominous impermanence. Among these makeshift shelters and marauding glue sniffers, hope is only one of the many things to die.

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