Tropico de Sangre (2010) Reviews

• excellent!

  santosnorman462010-08-04

  An excellent movie about Mirabal Sisters.I found it a little bit crude and violent, but necessary to express the violence of Latin American dictatorship in the 50s. The cinematography by Ricardo de Angelis expresses the beauty of the Dominican Republic countryside and at the same time the sadness of the people under Trujillo's power. Editor Nelson Rodriguez made a good job as usual. We are not used to see actress Michelle Rodriguez in this type of character and we were surprised by its very fine and poetic Spanish. Cesar Evora as Antonio de La Maza is impressive as the macho that finally killed Trujillo. What I preferred of this movie is how the story is told and how the dramatic process fits the real historic facts.

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• At least its a decent try!

  jamserramo2010-09-12

  A film with ups and downs, that's Tropico de Sangre! Being said that, come on, it's a try. And it really has substance and good things to be pointed out! Tropico de Sangre exposes in an authentic way the often repeated story of the Mirabal Sisters. To start off with the good, the movie's technical aspects are admirable. The image is great, the effects are great, and the production managed to successfully achieve the environment of the 50's with a hit in both dressing and scenery. The performance of several actors such as Sharlene Taule and Sergio Carlo (btw, is that his name?) performing Manolo were standouts, as well as the performance of experienced Cesar Evora. Michelle Rodriguez, despite the negative aspects, delivered the expected. Other minor actors like the one performing Minerva's father and the one performing Johnny Abbes resulted convincing as well. The way they tell the story is completely different to what we have seen, almost like much more poetical to me, and with right touches of fiction. Going to the cons, the story seemed to run slower than how it should have run. Sometimes you felt lost regarding some characters: who is he? why is he there? Juan Fernandez performance, is truly disappointing often falling in ridiculousness. His voice trying to imitate Trujillo sounded like a comic brought to the screen, and his inflexions were way too robotic. Minerva's mom is a complete joke as well! Very bad make up and very depressing performance! Actresses like Claudette Lali, Luchy Estevez, Celines Toribio... are just soap opera-ish! Too melodramatic and no real essence. Very superficial! Anyways, this move is dignifying Dominican depressing cinema!

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• a must-watch to understand the Dominican culture shock..

  MihoSayuri2011-03-08

  first of all, bless the Mirabal sisters and every single other person who gave their lives to bring down the absolute TYRANT that Trujillo was; they gave their lives in order to provide a better future for their children and nation. the acting, every single person, was phenomenal. as a fan of Michelle Rodriguez, I was blown away by her performance as Minerva. while I love her tough chick roles- female power is a great thing to see- this is her best film. she is fantastic in this film. Juan Fernandez as Trujillo was spot-on; a terrifying, disgusting animal of a 'human' and it made me want to shoot him myself (though I said HECK YES as he was killed by Antonio de la Maza!) a very sad film, you'll cry at the end; I'm sure of it. rest peacefully, those who gave their lives to bring down the tyrant that Trujillo was, and especially the Mirabal sisters; for you died doing what is right.

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• Don't waste your time

  timlin-42010-11-30

  I watched this for Michelle Rodriguez, and hope she had fun making it, because it was not fun watching. Production standards are lower than TV, giving the movie the feel of an after-school special or soap opera. I suppose that's normal for Latin America, but why anyone would watch this is mystifying, as it seems written for elementary schoolers, yet contains brutal torture scenes that are the only half-effective part of the film because of this naive and amateurish ambiance. We learn that heroic main characters will die, and the film proceeds to tell the story of how they do hardly anything, are pushed around, and finally do nothing as they are killed. Even if you are used to this poor quality and have a stake in the history, movie film is pointless. Worse than pointless because the myth of the Mirabals seems mostly to be fetishizing their sex rather than their revolutionary principles.

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• Not worth seeing

  juliaaltagracia2010-09-03

  I was very disappointed with this movie it has no quality at all in any aspect. Even actors such as Juan Fernandez and Michelle Rodriguez, did a bad job. I now realize that directing a movie has a great deal of what the final product is, and can make look bad good actors. The history does not focus or follows a plot. It just splashes over some events without real depth into any of the characters. So you do not identify of fell any emotions. Not worth seeing it. In some parts of the movies I really had to laugh of how bad they did it. I would not recommend this film at all. I rate it -F

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