Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a short review for a promising lookin' flick called NICOTINA. I like me my Diego Luna and gritty crime capers, so I'll be looking out for this one even if there is a risk of some bastard version of cancer that can be caught just by watching the characters chainsmoke on a movie screen! Valenti told me it was true! Why would he lie?
Hey Harry,
I've submitted reviews before and you've posted a couple of them. I saw that you posted the trailer for Nicotina so I thought I'd send you this review. Watch out for spoilers.
I watched this film quite a while back at a research screening in Southgate here in LA. The movie is a highly stylized, sometimes a little too stylish, dark comedy about a diamond heist that goes wrong. I know what you're thinking, Reservoir Dogs. Yes and no. The whole film takes place in real time over the course of one night in Mexico City.
The film opens with a guy, Diego Luna, hacking into a Swiss Bank for a Russian mobster. If you've ever been curious to hear how a Russian accent sounds in Spanish, this is the movie for you. Anyway, once the codes for the Swiss Bank are obtained he copies it onto a CD. However, the hacker is also a peeping Tom who has set up a camera in the room of his attractive next door neighbor. The guy has been recording this girls movements forever and burning them onto CD's. When it comes time to turn in the Swiss Bank CD over to the Russian, he mistakenly gives him a CD of the girl. After that all hell breaks loose and things go from bad to worse. It's all done tongue in cheek with plenty of violence. Usually when American studios do films like this they are overly glossy. This film is very gritty with plenty of dark humor.
One of the best things about the flick is that it gives a big middle finger to the MPAA and those self-righteous groups who want to ban smoking from the big screen. Almost every character in the film smokes like Anna Kournikova in a thong. Smoking almost becomes another character in the film because it's used for plot twists and points of conversation.
Anyway, if you dig people smoking shooting at each other while bantering in Tarantinoesque dialogue in Spanish, you might want to check this flick out. As for myself, I'm stepping out to light my stogie.
Call me
Groucho
