Real life accounts on the creation of an ad campaign used to oust Augusto Pinochet from Chilean power in 1988. This was up for a best foriegn language Oscar, but lost to that dreadful Amour movie. No is countless times more enjoyable than Amour, but that says very little. A couple major issues cause me to tell you no on No.

At it’s heart it is a fantastic true life tale of an underdog. Great story and some interesting characters. This is somewhat lost with the technical choices employed. A U-matic video camera was used throughout as was a 4:3 aspect ratio.  At the risk of boring those less technicaly inclined I’ll stop there, but say that it looked and felt like a cheap video commercial from the 80s. This was obvioulsy an attempt to help transport the viewer back to that era and might have worked in a short. Not fun to look at for 30 seconds of ad time let alone 118 minutes. Another issue I had was with the ideology of René Saavedra played by the always likable Gael García Bernal. René was at the head of the No campaign and his dumbed down, lowest common denominator methods were made up of the things that make me crazy about Hollywood.

Long story short, interesting, but the story is much more fruitful than the video it was shot on.

COULD WATCH 3 0f 5

Anderson 03/2013

Rating Legend

Must Watch = 5 0f 5 (See it in the theater if possible/buy it or pay for rental)

Should Watch = 4 of 5 (Worth sending away for)

Could Watch = 3 of 5 (If it’s on a pay channel or streaming for free)

Should Not Watch = 2 of 5 (Only if friends or family insist)

Do Not Watch = 1 of 5 (Don’t allow friends or family to make this mistake)

 

Posted on Monday, March 4th, 2013 at 8:05 pm and is filed under Reviews.
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