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Simply A Masterpiece

Load of rubbish!!

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

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

"Rodrigo D: No Futuro" is one of those films that doesn't necessarily aspire to be one of the greatest films you've ever seen but it has that one special quality that endures and stays with you after seeing it. I've seen several films through the years, dealing with many realities and outcomes, and lately was avoiding similar topics dealing with poverty, crime, harsh realities due to the fact you'll always get the same scenario of despair, brutal murders and stuff. To me, that trend was tiring already and wasn't adding much to me. This film, however, made an impact with me. Having never seen a film from Colombia, this was my first experience, it left me very impressed and hooked through the whole thing, and I was able to take a different perspective on things, examine how similar Brazil and Colombia were and are even today. I couldn't stop thinking about it and that's the kind of effect you expect from movies, specially from ones you expect more of the same. Víctor Gaviria's first feature film revolves around the title character (nicely played by then newcomer Ramiro Meneses), a teenage boy who dreams of forming a punk rock band. Problem is: this is 1988, he lives in the Medellín slums and there's no other interesting alternative for anyone except to join the crime world. Maybe that's not entirely accurate because Rodrigo gets offered some job by his father but he doesn't go. He prefers to stick with his loyal mates, all of them who are into punk music, play some music here and there but mostly focus in stealing motorcycles, cars and consuming drugs. In between crimes and music, Rodrigo and his friends go through life just finding ways to get easy money and escape from authorities, always having to find different hideaways. Here's a film that presents life as it is. Far from giving us a character who faces obstacles to fulfill a dream and building up to something, the story focus more about his reality, the environment surrounding him and how the choices for a life change are so narrow yet so invisible to Rodrigo and his mates. But since they're limited to a place that only presents them the bad side of everything they make the best they can with that: if not usually robbing innocent people, they're teasing each other or making poor music performances...but it's the best they got. My favorite scene from the picture is in fact one of those "poor" performances. After a lousy audition from some punks, Rodrigo and one friend decide to make a small jam session: Rodrigo in the drums and vocals and his mate playing the guitar, singing some bits. That was the highest point of the film in terms of seeing, without any other kind of explanation or a line of dialogue, why music is so important to them. The sense of liberty, release and complete abandon of all society rules, for that brief moment is what brings the characters closer to the dream or at least to some new reality that makes it worth living. That's what punk rock is all about besides the rebellion; in fact, those characters have a lot more to rebel against society than the actual punk creators.Gaviria's film is a near-perfect film - sure, there's some errors at times, characters that come and go and we don't know exactly who they are. But I believe he made a movie that echoed life with its uncertainties, problems, conflicts and misery. The closing credits is a depressive statement on that, when he dedicates the film to four actors who were murdered in between the film's making and its release, all of them dead before reaching their 20's. That's the fact that actually got me the most, remembering everything those characters went through, their stories and friendship and then...life's thrown back at you in such a devastating way, a statement that defines the picture almost in a hopeless way. But not completely. As evidenced by the prominent soundtrack, the film features music from many Colombian punk rock bands (the main theme "Dinero" is unforgettable). So, even in that unending state of despair there was some way out. And that's what Rodrigo believes. A way to leave the crime/drugs world behind and also the talks of his family thinking he's no good.Besides having a title character with the same name as me, another thing that hooked me (later on as I discovered) is the film's full title. Due to proximity of languages, I've always interpreted "No Futuro" as if being "Rodrigo D: In the Future". But looking out for the English version I came to realize that it's actually "No Future", which seems more appropriate due to the nature of the film and the punk aspects (Sex Pistols, baby). But with this title play or lack of translation here, it made me appreciate it even more because for one particular moment you can imagine what's the road Rodrigo will travel in and what possible outcome audiences will like to see it happening. 9/10

Rodrigo and his friends are bored teenagers living in Medellin. Rodrigo wants to start a punk band. The youths mainly loaf around the hillside shanty towns and, for kicks, steal a bike or car, or shoot someone.This film really grabbed me. Not necessarily for any specific reason, but more for the overall concept. One, you have the setting in Medellin. For me, that is synonymous with the drug cartel. And at the time this film was released (1990), I am sure that is exactly what it was going for.Also, the punk rock scene. This is probably naive on my part, but I don't generally think of punk music as being so international. I know there are punk bands everywhere, but it seems odd to have one as the focus of a South American movie. Maybe that's normal. But this surprise is what really made this a great film for me.

I f you are into a nice and safe Hollywood style of film like ¨City of God¨were poverty is cool, with cosmopolitan bourgeois actors like Seu Jorge, and there is in the end a happy ending (not to mention social commentary 25 plus years after the said incident...pretty cowardly), then please do not watch Rodrigo D: No Futuro. Mature ten, perhaps twenty years and see it then. The title of the film precedes what one should expect of the structure in the film....¨no future¨. There is no concept of time in this film which is why it is filmed in an aimless manner. ¨Pulp Fiction¨came out in 1994 and it was championed because it disturbed a traditional notion of time, BUT ¨Rodrigo D¨came out in 1990 (1988, in fact but released in 1990) and the conception of time or better said timelessness in the film is by far much more important than that of ¨Pulp Fiction¨. What is of key importance in the film is the final scenes when one is led to believe that the protagonist Rodrigo has committed suicide and then time is cut back, so we think or are made to question, to a scene that we think already happened: the murder of a punk by three bored street kids. The murder of the punk is presented in this ¨cut-back¨from the point of view of the victim where, after being shot what he (we) see is a body dangling in the trees, going no-where. We do not know if it is alive or dead, we can only assume that it is Rodrigo D's body just there, as if without a past and stagnant and, therefore, with no future. This movie is not glamorous, which is what makes it what it is. There are no John Travoltas. All of the actors were real street kids; Gaviria erases here the line between documentary and fiction and throws out the window the notion of the script, literally (rodigo jumps, remember). And this film as i mentioned above is not cowardly like¨City of God¨. It was filmed in the actual neighborhood where it is supposed to take place and not in some studio made to look like a beautiful Brazilian favela. The kids in the movie lived in this neighborhood and unfortunately due too their screen exposure four, to my knowledge, were singled out for execution for participating in social commentary of the present time. They were killed before reaching the age of 20 for being in this film. This movie really anticipates the acclaimed American film ¨Kids¨by Larry Clark except, again, the film ¨kids¨used actors who wanted to be mainstream actors, probably of the middle classes. ¨City of God¨ takes place 30 some years prior to the film's release, typical of the Hollywood political rule. Lastly, if it should be compared then at least in attitude it should be compared to ¨repo man¨, not because ¨repo man¨is as important but because both contain a certain aspects of Punk (when punk had just died) which is practically impossible to depict to-day. As for Punks who were swastikas, try Sid Vicious, New Order, and Joy Division. The taking of a fascist symbol and twisting its meaning by wearing it in degrading form just too annoy the REAL Fascist AT HEART was a punk specialty. do your homework.

This is a brilliant movie about Rodrigo and his friends, a group of punks who wander the streets of Medellin, getting high, stealing cars, listening to Punk and Heavy Metal music. They're stuck in lives of poverty, with no opportunities and no motivation to try to improve their lives. Their routine is interrupted only when the cops catch up with one of them (which is really an inevitability for all of them, sooner or later), or they get into a fight. Rodrigo dreams of starting a rock band, something that might give his life some meaning (he has no education beyond the 1st grade, has no job, and basically sits around the house all day listening to his family complain about how lazy he is). The movie depicts the world of Rodrigo and his friends with harsh realism, accompanied by striking cinematography, pulsing rock music, and a script with an ear for how these people communicate. While this movie is clearly influenced by "Los Olvidados," it also bears a resemblance to Alex Cox's great "Sid and Nancy" - we are invited to see the world in which these young rebels live, and to understand the ways in which it can destroy them.