- Studio: City of Gardens
- Release Date: Sep 28, 2012
- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
Sep 30, 201250Setting his fact-based tale on the eve of democratic elections in 1980 Peru, Vila tends to err on the side of melodrama whenever possible, and John Robinson's lead performance offers no end of privileged American naivete. But the characters are solid and the action sound.
-
40Unable to shape these events into a dramatic structure, the director, Camilo Vila, resorts to a meandering tale of random indignities suffered by a lead so bland he comes across less as principled than as stupendously naïve.
-
30On every level this production - from Robinson's callow performance to Vila's hackneyed handheld camerawork, punching beats in the stead of the actors - remains firmly on the level of the obvious.
-
30The trouble is that it's hard to care about poor Wayne when he seems so empty-headed and naïve - civic unrest in Peru on the eve of its first democratic elections in 1980 is the setting - and when the movie itself seems so unfocused.