La Parte Del Leon (1978)

Run Time - 85 min.  |   Countries - Argentina  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Brian Whitener

Adolfo Aristarian, the stunning Argentinean director and master of the genre film, offers his take on the crime film with La Parte del Leon. Aristarian betrays his encyclopedic knowledge of the genre in the film's dedication, "To Warner Bros., 1930-1950." The film, like all great crime films, has a simple story told in a brilliant manner, with Aristarian pulling out all the stops. Bruno di Toro is a normal kind of guy, with a job, without a girl, and without a lot of money. One day he stumbles onto a cache of cash which, like anyone would, he pockets. With the money, he makes the scene flashing around town and setting up "business" meetings with corrupt government officials and greedy American businessmen. Before his plans can bear fruit, the "owners" of the money, a group of bank robbers, come after him, bringing heat. Bruno tries to run but his fate is already, inescapably, sealed. Like the Warner Bros. crime films of 1947 to 1953 which created social commentary by drawing parallels between crime and capitalism, this film does the same, but between Argentina's military regime and a social Darwinism of the streets.