Industrial and genre Argentine cinema is well oiled and the results are increasingly encouraging, especially when the film comes with the backing of distribution giants, such as extortiondirected by Martino Zaidelis and starring Guillermo Francella, who, in addition to having Warner Bros., HBO Max and Particular Crowd (TNT) as distributors, has producers (Juan José Campanella, Axel Kuschevatzky, Tomás Yankelevich and Hernán Musaluppi) who they love what they do.
Zaidelis’s film is part of the thriller with planes and the spy police that mixes state employees, gangsters and corrupt police officers, leaving Francella the responsibility of bringing the story to a successful conclusion. And boy does she make it, because extortion it creates atmosphere and tension and has a rhythm typical of good American thrillers.
The plot
Alejandro Petrossián (Francella) is 58 years old and is the pilot of international flights who is forced to do the dirty work of State Intelligence, represented by Saavedra (Pablo Rago). Alejandro is married to Carolina (Andrea Frigerio), a stewardess for the same company, and he has a hearing loss that compromises him, although he continues to work thanks to a doctor (and lover) who signed his studies as if everything was fine.
The fact of deafness (and infidelity) is used by Saavedra to blackmail Alejandro and ask him for the secret job, which consists of taking suitcases on every flight he makes to Madrid. Saavedra explains what he has to do, as well as giving him instructions in case he finds himself in trouble with the airport police, whose boss is Mario Aldana (Carlos Portaluppi), who soon realizes what is happening. .
In this way, the two faces of these areas of State security are contrasted so that the film can point out, with the codes of the genre in which it is framed, a corruption that does not end with the imprisonment of those responsible, which makes it in a pessimistic film.
Saavedra tells Alejandro that all he has to do is take the suitcases and exchange them in a public bathroom. The guy he has to switch with is Porchietto (Alberto Ajaka), the same guy who at the beginning of the film fires three shots at point blank range at another pilot who was doing the same thing as Alejandro.
All genre cinema is political and extortion dismantles a hidden network that involves some powerful people who work for the State, showing them as ordinary thugs, and, for that very reason, extremely dangerous. Rago’s character is a villain capable of killing or ordering to kill in broad daylight without any problem.
The pieces that move extortion They are on the table and the director knows how to carry suspense with a pulse. The performances are impeccably professional and the plot unfolds with rhythm and editing that make it effective and entertaining, despite some hasty decisions in the last few minutes.
Argentina, 2023. Suspense. Address: Martino Zaidelis. Script: Emmanuel Ten. List: William Francella, Pablo Rago, Andrea Frigerio, Carlos Portaluppi, William Arengo, Monica Villa, Alberto Ajaka, Joselo Bella, Romina Pinto, Juan Lo Sasso and Osvaldo Djeredjian. Photography: Lucio Bonelli. Music: Pablo Borghi. Duration: 105 minutes. Suitable for over 13 years old with reserves). Complexity: nil. Sex: null. Violence: high. In theaters.