Johnny 100 Pesos

Johnny 100 Pesos
by Gustavo Graef-Marino

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DVD Reviews of Johnny 100 Pesos

DVD Review: Smart crime film with a message
Summary: 4 Stars

Soon after Chilean dictator Pinochet was finally booted out of office, the actual events on which this film was based occurred. 17-year old Johnny Garcia teams up with four small time crooks to rob the illegal currency exchange operation hidden behind a video store in a commercial office building in Santiago. Unfortunately, Johnny--not an experienced crook by a long shot--leaves lying around his ID card which leads the policia to the whereabouts of him and his cronies.

What makes this film a winner is the focus on the intensity of the events the director (also the script co-writer) brings to bear, especially Johnny's frenetic teenage psychology which experiences everything, as many teenagers do, to the max of emotional frenzy. For Johnny, crime and sex are ultra-passionate. Sex comes in the form of a former prostitute, now the secretary of the man running the illegal operation--his mistress--to whom Johnny is attracted and who's almost twice his age.

This intensity drives the film forward; we're pulled into the story and just as easily pulled along as it steamrolls to its semi-tragic conclusion. Politics as well is a part of the story; political corruption, always an audience favorite worldwide, rears its ugly head, as does the need for responsible parent-children relationships. Hence the message.

But it's really Johnny's film; the director does a great job of showing us the futility of all this passion when the result is...now what do I do?

Recommended.