Laia Marull in Lisboa (1999)

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Tuna's Comments:

Lisboa (1999), or Lisban, is a work-man like thriller. Traveling salesman, Sergi López is on his way back to Portugal, when he picks up a middle-aged woman hitchhiker, Carmen Maura. She desperately wants him to take her to Lisban, but won't say much as to why. He discovers a gun and some jewels in her handbag. When she faints at a rest stop, he checks an address book in her purse, and calls her family. As the story unfolds, we learn about an ultra-creep of a husband, a father that goes along and the murder of her husband's business associate and his family. We further learn that both she and her daughter have slept with the business associate.

The question is, who will survive, and will the bad guys get turned in. Maura was nominated for a Goya for her performance. Indeed, her performance was the best in the film. I watched this on a US release with forced sub-titles, and a very faded transfer. As near as I can tell, the film played the International festival circuit, and was a direct to vid in the US. It is a decent genre film, and no more. A better transfer would have helped. C-.

Scoop's Comments:

As Tuna has pointed out, the Spanish film industry is a world leader in many ways, especially when it comes to character-based films with lustrous photography and set design.

As far as plot-driven crime thrillers - well, that's another story. Based on this film, they are approximately four decades behind American TV. In fact, it looks like they just took one of the better old Mannix scripts and adapted it. It would be in the middle of the road among the zillion or so of these things churned out annually in the American DTV market. Stock characters, conventional plot twists. Yawner all the way, and poor DVD to boot.

Nudity Report: The daughter, Laia Marull (Fugitives), shows breasts twice, and most of her buns in a thong.

IMDB Summary: IMDB readers say 6.5 of 10.

DVD Info: Widescreen letterboxed. Approximately 2.2:1. Weak transfer.


Written by: Tuna and Scoopy …courtesy of Scoopy.net