Review of Tony Manero (2008) by Florence . — 21 Oct 2010

Pretty good, just not what I was expecting. Tony Manero is about a serial killer in 1978 Chile who is obsessed with Saturday Night Fever and leads a troupe of dancers who impersonate the latter film's protagonist.

Many critics have (somewhat ingenuously) cited the film as an indictment of then head of state General Pinochet's regime, and have suggested that the director is using the killings carried out by the main character as a metaphor for the killings being carried out by the Chilean security services at the time.

I myself would say the film is far more apolitical than that. Unlike Pinochet, this killer does not kill anyone because of their political views, he does it out of sheer self-interest. The extent of the film's political commentary amounts to two scenes in which leftist dissidents are tracked down and brutalised by the secret police and our serial killer anti-hero evades capture, thereby suggesting that the Chilean security services at the time were far more interested in silencing voices of dissent than in punishing actual criminals.

In summary then, a good movie, but contrary to what many critics would have you believe, one that works much better as a dark psychological drama than as a chronicle of social history.