Search - Tres Pajaros on DVD

Good acting, problematic storyline

A. Wallace | California, USA | 07/19/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Gustavo (Daniel Kuznicka) is a young, go-getter businessman from Buenos Aires. He listens to a motivational recording in his car that compares the successful businessman to a jungle animal who knows what he wants and goes for it. Unfortunately for Gustavo, his jungle behavior, impulsive and self-serving, manages to consistently conflict with what it actually takes to be successful. He is late to meetings, shows impatience and rudeness when dealing with people who could help him, and throws things away in sudden bursts of anger when frustrated. He takes up with Mariela (Isabel Achaval), an adorable but dangerous and callow prostitute, for no other reason than his jungle-instinct commands him. Unfortunately for me, this was the most interesting conflict of the film, and the film's outcome was not believable in the context of Gustavo's character. There was no evolution of his character that would suggest a change, although perhaps the message is that his jungle-morality does ultimately lead to being left in the jungle to fend for himself. Somehow, I don't think that's what the director was aiming for though. Mariela's character, cute, sexy and pathetic as she was, did not convey the sort of depth that would change a man, or even make him forgive her for ruining his life, unless his vision of what makes life worth living had changed. The film does not develop the characters well enough to support that interpretation though."