Time Out (1998)

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This is not a great movie. The edition is mediocre, the camera work is kind of lousy, the music sucks definitely, the characters are too cliché and worn out and the very conception of the shots is downright amateur even though director Sergio Cabrera is an experienced film maker.However, this film has its heart in the right place. The whimsical and joyous parade of ridiculous events satirize the war that rages in Colombia right now and exposes the real spirit of those who inhabit such a beautiful country. But most important, this film is really, really funny. Seeing this film is a catharsis for a country that unfortunately is losing the war against itself and foreign influences.Colombia's economy, its politicians and the stigma that carries as a drug producing bunch of delinquents is the curse of a people. The only thing left for Colombians, is to laugh. And that, my friend is something the they really know how to do, because you only laugh when you have a soul full of courage!

The title of this film is a play on words. By adding an "i" to the expression coup d'etat (government throw over)in a few Latin languages, "coup d'etat" becomes "coup de stade" or stadium throw over. Unfortunately, the impact of its title, the first of the many "coups" this film throws, is lost in English. Nevertheless, this award-winning European-Colombian co-production, and the most successful Colombian film ever, is full of other satire that is easy to understand: intelligent, and hilarious. Soccer (football), as usual the common denominator of people worldwide except in the US, serves as the pretense to dish out most of the most notorious social problems in the country. Exploitation by multi nationals, these companies complicity with the guerrillas and thus with the drug lords, the innocence of the common people who are most affected by these forces beyond their control, corruption, prostitution, poverty, and the like, are actually made quite funny. Much needed by the country's population as comic relief, this movie is a scathing political and social satire of all the parties involved in the nation's seemingly unsurmountable problems. A great cast play out a dynamite script in the hinterlands of the country where all the different forces interact. What brings them "together" is their passion for soccer, and in this film, finding a way to see the 1994 qualifying match between the Colombian national team and Argentina rises above all differences, to become the top priority. A riot!