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Cronicas | 121035__cronicas_l
ON THE CRIME BEAT Leguizamo is a tabloid reporter chasing a killer story

Credits

Limited Release: May 27, 2005; Rated: R; Length: 98 Minutes; Genres: Drama, Foreign Language, Thriller; With: John Leguizamo
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By Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is a film critic for EW

Journalists in movies tend to come in two flavors: idealistic or sleazy. The intrigue of Crónicas is that John Leguizamo plays a tabloid TV reporter who is both at once. As Manolo, the star muckraker of a Spanish-language channel based out of Miami, he's a bottom-feeder who suffers a seizure of conscience, yet not at the expense of his exploitative instincts. Leguizamo has given so many whiny, overbaked performances that it's a pleasure to see him set aside his mannerisms to play a shrewdly authoritative adult. Manolo, who arrives in Ecuador to investigate a local serial killer, saves the life of Vinicio (Damián Alcázar), who has left a child dead in an auto accident. As revealed in the opening scene, however, Vinicio is also the killer. Manolo suspects him, yet he can't prove anything, which is why he agrees to do a sympathetic piece about the accident. Is he sniffing out the truth or letting himself be used by the devil? The moral murk of Crónicas would be more effective if the story weren't so contrived, yet the movie is worth seeing for Leguizamo's sinewy urgency, Alcázar's desperate cleverness as the killer, and the squalid, frantic atmosphere of Latin American hunger.


Posted Jul 13, 2005
 

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