Zurdo Reviews

Falling from the Sky: Flight 174 (1995 TV Movie)

Bloopers from the Sky

[21 September 1999]

This movie is a docudrama based on an actual event, so there's little excuse for criticizing the storyline, particularly since the acting was decent. However, the directing and casting were less than perfect.

For starters, the event takes place on a Canadian airliner on it's way to Winnipeg. The principle Winnipeg air traffic controller is Al Williams, played by Nicholas Turturro who is from Queens, New York. Nick as the presumably Canadian air traffic controller didn't leave his thick New York accent back home when he went to Winnipeg to speak his lines, and the director apparently did not believe native English-speaking viewers would notice it.

Among commercial airline pilots, the captain is typically considerably older than the first officer (co-pilot), and normally noticeably so. However, on this particular version of Flight 174, the first officer looked older than the captain, and the actors IMDb bios show only a three-year age difference between them.

Towards the latter part of the story, the pilots start preparing for an emergency landing near Winnipeg. However, in every cockpit scene during that segment, the view of the outside terrain from the cockpit windows is always the same as if the plane was in suspended celestial animation.

But again, maybe the director thought we wouldn't notice.

Perdita Durango (1997)

Natural Born Latinos

[17 August 1999]

This film could be described both story and visual-wise as being somewhat of a Latino version of "Natural Born Killers," with a lot of typical B-grade Mexican cinema imagery mixed in to enhance the visual shock value in lieu of the intermittent black, white, and red tabloid imagery Oliver Stone used in NBK.

If one had to guess who directed it, such names as Stone, David Lynch, or John Waters might first come to mind, being that the film was Spaniard Alex de la Iglesia's debut in English-language cinema (although it includes a lot of lines in Spanish with English subtitles).

If any of the cast would have been nominated for an Oscar, the "Best Actor" category would have went to Spanish actor Javier Bardem who also made this film his debut in English, and whose role as "Romeo" produces a shadowy image and reminder of the late Puerto Rican actor Raul Julia. Bardem's masterful portrayal of the charmingly demonic character is convincing enough to produce first-stage symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome among his audience as well as his character's young, female kidnap/rape victim towards the latter part of the story, even though his ultimate fate is predictable.

Veteran actress, choreographer, and film co-star Rosie Perez, whose character name is the film's title, contributes a lot of foundation to the screenplay and support to Bardem's role, and the rest of the cast does a decent job in portraying their garden variety of pitiful characters as well.

Last but not least, Director de la Iglesia did an exceptionally creative job in conducting the film's "orchestra" along the border from Texas to Nogales to Tijuana.