Deep Crimson

Petty extortionist Daniel Gimenez Cacho steals from lonely women and widows in late-1940s Mexico. When he meets Regina Orozco, an unhappily fat nurse who leaves her two children with nuns, they take to the road as business partners. She finds him clients, he turns on the silver-tongued charm. Arturo Ripstein’s grisly drama is a deadpan take on the real-life Lonely Hearts murder case, filmed in bleak black and white in 1968 as The Honeymoon Killers, and in lurid detail in 2006 as the John Travolta thriller Lonely Hearts. Here, the use of vibrant colours in such shabby surroundings lends the film an oppressive atmosphere of evil, though the two monstrous killers are viewed dispassionately. This, coupled with the extraordinary attention to detail, gives the film its disturbing power. These are two sad, deluded people who bring out the worst in each other. He’s a mousey man suffering from crippling migraines, she’s a bovine drudge wracked by guilt at abandoning her children. The one time she’s seen in a nurse smock, she makes it look like a butcher’s apron. The spare music is by David Mansfield, Michael Cimino’s composer on Heaven’s Gate. As scary as the pitiless Salma Hayek is as Martha Beck in Lonely Hearts, Regina Orozco’s portrayal of this monstrous woman is somehow scarier – because she’s pitiable. This is a tough, tragic story, it really doesn’t need Mansfield’s maudlin boulevard themes.

This movie was far better than I expected!

Regina Orozco & Daniel Giménez Cacho are not well known in the states, but, of the three films about the "Lonely Hearts Killers" this one haunted me long afterwards. Set in barren Mexican landscapes, it had a raw, visceral effect on me. Ms. Orozco is unforgettable.

Even better then I anticipated. Quite the opposite of the Honeymoon Killers- one has actual three-dimensional characters you care about, especially the victims and this brings the film real dread and horror. A quality period piece that could be a crime film or a tragic love story where their is no real love or god or law- just survival, and the occasional romantic movie at the local picture show.

The way Roger Ebert and TIME magazine described this movie made me buy it and see it. I was expecting a gruesome masterpiece, something like Buñuel's "Los Olvidados" or any film by Bigas Lunas. Certainly, Arturo Ripstein directing is always a good omen, but... alas, it was not to be!Sure, the story is quite disturbing, but not as shocking as you'd think. Daniel Giménez Cacho and Regina Orozco are O.K. but not in their roles of a lifetime. The girl playing the last victim makes the best performance of them all, and Almodóvar's favorite Marisa Paredes is thoroughly wasted in the most dreadful acting I've ever seen. Too bad, really, but worth watching once.Remember, it ain't over 'til the fat lady... sinks!

This is the blunt but forceful story of a handsome gigolo and a stupid, lustful and evil woman, both getting what they deserve in life.*** WARNING -- Plot Points Revealed ***This "Mexican Bonnie-and-Clyde" story is so unusual in its treatment of its main characters that it presents a refreshing departure from the regular Hollywood mold in which we are always helped to fall in love with the otherwise bad characters.In DEEP CRIMSON, there are no such crutches. These are two rotten people sinking in their own stinking hell. Not a film for the faint hearted.The actors Daniel Giménez Cacho and Regina Orozco are cast perfectly for their characters Nicolás Estrella and Coral Fabre. The director Arturo Ripstein's unblinking eye has transformed Paz Alicia Garciadiego's unapologetic script into a pretty good movie of alienation, lust and murder.The protagonist Coral makes a pact with the devil just for love and sex with the handsome Nicolas. She'd rather give her own children away and kill other women than face a lonely life on her own.In her desperate attempt to find the man of her dreams and claim him her own, Coral ends up agreeing to share her lover with other women. She of course harbors a murderous hatred and insane jealousy for these others but she is nothing special. Just a below-average looking overweight female with no wealth. Thus Coral has resigned to the fact that the only way she can keep her gigolo lover is to become his willing accomplice and partner in crime.In the opening scene of the film, we witness a messy lower-class bedroom decorated with photos of movie stars. There is Coral, an overweight and horny nurse and a mortician's helper, reading a paperback in bed.Things start to roll when Coral meets gigolo Nicolas through a personal ad. But is this the handsome prince she'd been waiting for all her life?After giving away her children just to be with Nicolas, Coral discovers that Nicolas is not a sincere lover but a gigolo who skims lonely women like herself. She has a choice to make - leave or proceed? She chooses the latter.Coral and Nicolas, now working together to fleece unsuspecting women while posing as a brother and sister, meet a lonely widow at a bar in the boondocks. Jealous Coral kills the widow by mixing rat poison into her drink. Such mishap continue to befall all the other women that are drawn to Nicola's flirtatious charm.Nicolas and Coral visit the third widow who answer Nicolas's personal ad. Nicolas stabs the young widow to death after getting her pregnant.At the end, when they see that there is no way out of their murderous con game, Nicolas and Coral turn themselves in. But are they in for a surprise! The cops take them out to a desolate country road and shoot them both. Adios.A film that works well within the no-nonsense parameters it establishes for itself from the very beginning. It delivers its stark promise in spades. A blunt head-on 8 out of 10.