As Augusto Pinochet holds Chile in the grip of dictatorship, a 50-year-old man obsessed with John Travolta's character from Saturday Night Fever imitates his idol each weekend in a small bar on the outskirts of Santiago. Each weekend, Raúl Peralta and his friends -- a devoted group of dancers -- gather in a small bar and act out their favorite scenes from Saturday Night Fever. Raúl longs to become a showbiz superstar, and when the national television announces a Tony Manero impersonating contest
it seems like he may finally have a shot at living his dreams. But as Raúl is driven to commit a series of crimes and thefts in order to reproduce his matinee idol's persona, his dancing partners (also underground resistance fighters who rail against the regime) are persecuted by the secret police. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Larrain's (literally) dark, edgy movie is a precise artistic commentary on Augusto Pinochet's miserable regime, which was under way while Travolta gyrated.
Larrain evokes the bleakness and oppressiveness of life in a police state with much subtlety even as he poses a much larger question about cultural imperialism.
Shot with a hand-held camera and presented in a fragmented scenario, Tony Manero is the director's compelling attempt to find parallels between the Pinochet reign of terror and Raúl's scruple-less antics.
A memorably claustrophobic evocation of its time and place, as well as a reminder that the so-called escape offered by pop culture can sometimes be an escape into soul-sucking madness.
Larrain's consciously raw execution in telling the story of a compelling but ultimately unsavory character is an id-bending exercise in provocation that's both competent and challenging.
Perhaps best appreciated as a deadpan dark comedy about how ignorance, delusion, and selfishness can conspire to keep a people under the bootheels of a dictatorship.
A distortion of the historical record that is irresponsible and reprehensible. And a display of deplorable disregard by the director as irreverent whim for irreverence's sake, for the many who suffered and perished from Pinochet's crimes against humanity.
Cinephilia -- the smart-about-movies concept about the love of film -- has been so distorted in contemporary movie culture that it has led to the repugnant Chilean film Tony Manero.
[Director] Larrain deftly employs a Dardennes-style in-the-moment handheld lensing, managing a high-wire act in which audience disgust is outpaced by breathless anticipation.
Remarkable Chilean actor Alfredo Castro portrays a sleaze-bag standing in for people desperate psychologically to escape from dictator General Pinochet's brutality.
Chile's official submission to the 2009 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film is an interesting, compelling study of a miserable sociopath, relying on a gripping performance by Alfredo Castro and making some subtle political comments.
A cross between Man Bites Dog, The King of Comedy and Scarface but no where near as good as either. Alfredo Castro is brilliant as Raúl Peralta, a man obsessed with becoming Tony Manero in 1978's Chile during Pinochets dictatorship, the gritty violence and pure terror is there but only in blink and you'll miss it
slices, the rest of the time I'm afraid is just not piratically entertaining and I was left feeling pretty disappointed as I'd been looking forward to this one since it's release. It's still well worth a watch though!
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