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Sadly Over-hyped

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This movie has no emotions. No heart. The idea/the story is great, but the movie is not. Most of the Argentinian movies have this problem. The lack of music makes it even more boring and slow. This movie doesn't make you feel any feelings but boredom. i know the actor from other films and he is a great professional, but in this movie is totally wasted. Nobody can declare that he did a great performance. He didn't make any gesture, he didn't even talk. Nothing. The dialogs are simple, dull and poor. In my opinion our taste for movies depend on our own values, culture, upbringing, experiences, etc. Thats why some people love a movie, and some other people don't. But this...this is a bad movie.

Ruben, a bodyguard, for Artemio, the minister of planning in Argentina, is a man whose work appears to be waiting incessantly for a man that regards him as an imposed nuisance, a speck of dust on the floor, to put it mildly. In other word, Ruben, even though he is doing a job, what he does is not appreciated by his cold boss. There is never any meaningful exchange of ideas between the men, let alone any semblance of civility toward the man that is perhaps a step above a servant.This lonely man is constantly pacing outside the rooms where the meetings that demand the minister's presence takes place. He must stay alert, even when the boss is clearly seen with a lover through a window. Ruben's duty include guarding the minister as he entertains in his country estate, where he is seen as an intrusion no one in the household acknowledge. The only time we see any type of conversation involves a visiting foreign couple that are guests in the country. Wanting to impress the visitors, Artemio asks his bodyguard to sketch the visiting friend. It is made clear just by watching his morning routine that Ruben does not have any life of his own. He lives for his job. We follow Ruben as he visits his sister Beatriz in a hospital. It becomes clear the woman has some mental problems. Ruben, patiently listens to her rant, but never becomes involved in what the woman is saying. Ruben meets with his sister, and niece, and some guests at a Chinese restaurant, where Beatriz is not happy with the table they were given. She wants to move things around, something that exasperates her brother, complicated by the fact she wants her daughter, who has prepared a number, to sing it for her uncle, which she does so bad, no one in his right mind could endure.The only relief Ruben has is sexual release with a prostitute. He does it through a pimp, we see him following through a commercial gallery. The woman lives at home with her old mother, who is in a separate room as Ruben gets into the apartment. We watch the old woman coming to close the door of her daughter's room, as though she knows what is really going on.Things come to an unexpected end when Artemio suffers what appears to be a mild heart attack. Taken to a hospital, Ruben, who was reprimanded for not being in his post by one of the minister's aides, must stand guard outside the room. We watch Ruben's accumulated anger get the best of him in a surprising turn we were not even anticipating. Ruben's quest becomes to drive toward the ocean, something he never has experienced.Rodrigo Moreno the writer-director of "El Custodio" understood perfectly the character of the man at the center of the story. Life has passed Ruben by. He is an ordinary man who suffers from chronic loneliness, which he cannot shake, but in accepting what life has given him, he is ignored, belittled, and treated like dirt by a system that wants only achievers and idols, something which he is not. The anger that has been bottled inside Ruben finally gets the best of him in ways that should not surprise anyone, because one saw it coming all the time.Getting Julio Chavez to portray Ruben, the director could not have asked for more perfection. Mr. Chavez, one of the best actors from Argentina, gives a masterful performance in a film without dialogue. We only see Ruben talk on a few occasions. The actor clearly understood what his character was going through in the way he looks at the situation at hand. We had greatly enjoyed him in the two seasons of the great series "Epitaphs" one of the best entries in television from Argentina. Osmar Nunez is seen as Artemio in a subdued form. Cristina Villamor has some good moments as Beatriz.Barbara Alvarez was credited as the cinematographer of the film. She captures the nuances of what Mr. Moreno wanted to show in clear takes that shows a different Buenos Aires than the tourists get to see. Federico Jusid contributed the music score. This is the first film by Rodrigo Moreno we have seen. One can only wish this talented man a great career in the cinema and perhaps another collaboration with the excellent Julio Chavez is in order.

I really tried to like this movie and as IMDb shows here, some others were more successful by doing so than me. Yes this movie has good ideas and yes it is a psychological study of a bodyguard ... you could say a documentary.And by being or feeling like a documentary it dries you up inside. In other words it gets boring. Why does it get boring? Because the work of a bodyguard is boring. I don't need 20 scenes that tell me, that the life of a bodyguard sucks ... 2 or 3 would've been enough! For me this movie was a waste of time and opportunities ... they could've either created some drama, but more importantly, they could've shortened the movie a lot! Better yet, they should have!

What bugs me more than anything about my job is how everybody I work with views their profession as two to three pay grades below them. They, unknowing or uncaring about the rest of the world who live with dirt floors and without hot showers, feel crushed under the weight of their own disappointment. Why they, special as they are, have to serve coffee is a grand mystery to them because clearly they deserve so much more. And it is that mentality there that drives "El Custodio," a film from Argentina about Ruben, a bodyguard to a politician and emotional ticking time bomb. He too feels entitled to more of life's riches and to have to play tail to a man who truly does live in the lap of luxury only serves to rub his nose in it. Ruben takes his job seriously and yet is a joke to all those around him. His passion for art is turned into a cheap party trick by his owner, and he has to play chauffeur to the politician's daughter while she services her boyfriend in plain view. In other words his job sucks.This all has a very authentic feel to it. Work is either hard or boring (that is, after all, why they pay you) and here we certainly suffer the latter. However, as it usually is, if you tell a boring story you end up with a boring movie, and that is exactly what we have here. His mundane professional experience is our mundane viewing experience. It is not like the guy is protecting his boss from assassination attempts at the UN, more like carting him around town so that he can spend some quality time with his goomah. Michael Mann has made a career out of showing men at work, but he has yet to capture the true feeling of his audiences work day. Most of us aren't driving a homicidal Tom Cruise around LA in the middle of the night. Here we get realism and that comes with it. There is some subtle humor mixed in, mostly dealing with sex. But the tricks director Rodrigo Moreno plays on us are so mild and inconsequential that they are instantly forgettable.As we learned many moons ago, when Hollywood does bodyguard movies they can't help but dose the whole thing in sap. We do tag along with Ruben as he takes his whole family out to dinner, and while they are supposed to be funny and/or eccentric they don't come off as any more crazy than your family or mine. Well except for the part where he brandishes a gun, but hey, maybe you're from down South. Romance arrives in the form of a prostitute but even that is handled with stone cold seriousness. Since this is not a Wolfgang Petersen/Clint Eastwood movie don't expect anything as over roasted as a slow mo shot Ruben taking a bullet for his master. Quite the opposite in fact. And even though the film does take a populist turn towards the end I can't forgive them for how much the first 2/3 of it felt like a chore. If you've ever worked in your life you'll feel for this guy, but you will also recognize that most of us swallow our pride every day when we wake up and go off to bake bread, drive cabs, or serve coffee. But apparently poor Ruben was incapable of that. **1/2