The Zone (2008)

Such a frustrating disappointment

It is a performances centric movie

Absolutely the worst movie.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

La Zona for me looks like a Hollywood film. That is not of course a bad thing, but after hearing about this film, I was expecting a more original look. Now it felt like any other drama coming from L.A. Even though this one was done in Mexico.For me a lot of the acting was overdone and very theatrical. There were a lot of scenes that were touching and felt real, but there was a kind of unreal feeling through out the film.It was however very well made. The cinematic style and compositions were well thought.For me the film felt like a film, and I didn't believe in it. This caused me the lack of feeling and I didn't attach to the piece.

In Mexico City, a wealthy compound is surrounded by walls and surveillance system to protect the locals against the violence of the slums. During a stormy night, a billboard falls over the wall and three smalltime thieves cross the border through the breach to rob. They break into a house and kill an old lady; the residents organize militias to chase the delinquents. Two of them and one security guard are murdered by the vigilantes, but the sixteen year old Miguel (Alan Chávez) hides in the basement of the teenager Alejandro (Daniel Tovar). When Alejandro finds Miguel, he feeds and helps the boy, but it is impossible to escape from the Zone."La Zone" reflects the life in a Third World big city, where the afraid middle-class lives in houses, compounds and buildings surrounded and under siege of slums and protected by walls, fences and gates. Further, it shows the corruption in the police, where the work of an honest policeman is affected by the general corruption. This drama unravels how dangerous might be the principle of an eye for en eye and when common people becomes vigilantes. The performances are very realistic, giving a total credibility to the plot. The DVD released by the Brazilian distributor Dreamland Filmes has a problem and for accessing the last chapter, the viewer needs to go to "Scene Selection" in the Menu, otherwise the DVD stops. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Zona do Crime" ("Zone of the Crime")

Every year there's a summer movie festival in the open court of an old palace in my town. I like going there, with some friends of mine or alone, to see films carefully chosen every time from the recent months new releases. The logic is: no blockbusters, high quality. I knew nothing about "La Zona". From the first minute, i was given the possibility to see the future directly in the eyes of Aldous Huxley or George Orwell, if they were here now. The birth of a brave new world, full of violence, where law is a word without meaning. Or with a lot of different meanings, that's the same. The plot is very simple,but brilliant. A perfect mechanism, with classical roles and fantastic acting. Destiny is in the air, like in Greek tragedy, and the best of all is that you can't identify yourself with one or the other easily. If you do that, you'll be someway guilty. Not to miss.

This is about the Mexican big city, there rich people have created a zone behind walls. They keep the world out, but they are also kept out. Three young thieves enter and the hunt begins. The rich just don't want to defend their privileges. They want to kill for them.But few of them are monsters. And what could have been an after all rather conventional social thriller, is more than that. The plot turns many times and everything isn't what it seems.A strong movie about a class hatred which is becoming a dangerous threat to our kind of societies. It's a warning to us, not just to the rich.