Review of Tony Manero (2008) by Marie-Anne W — 25 Jun 2010

If that infamous movie character name of this foreign film's title is dancing very familiarly in your head, you have a good guess on who it is; none other than John Travolta's character in the 70's classic "Saturday Night Fever". So why is Tony Manero dancing now with foreign stars? Well, the character of Tony Manero not only took our nation by storm, but also had profound global awareness in the 70's and thereafter. The movie "Tony Manero" steps its way into the obsessed mind of protagonist Raul Perelta, a middle-aged serial killer residing in 1970's Chile under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Perelta has some scary moves by sabotaging anything or anyone who gets in his way in perfecting the embodiment & characterization of Tony Manero. In other words, not many that cross the Peralta pathway are "staying alive" throughout the film's narrative. His premier quest is to dance his way to the top prize in a Chilean TV show's "Tony Manero celebrity impersonation" contest. Director Pablo Larrain and screenwriters Alfredo Castro & Mateo Iribarren formulate the character of Peralta as such a disturbed and repulsive protagonist that it questions "how deep were their thoughts" in the film's developing process. The Raul Peralta character is so repugnant and odious that it automatically disengages one to the film's central narrative. Castro's leading performance as Manero had a severe case of the "thespian broken record syndrome" with its monotone method. If it can have you Mr. Castro, then why not include other similar subpar performances from the film's supporting cast. Now I must admit that I enjoyed a few scenes of "Tony Manero" that paid homage to "Saturday Night Fever" including when Peralta mumbles the lines of Fever in the theatre while watching it countless times, his shock when he first observes that John Travolta's Danny Zuko character in "Grease" is a far cry from Travolta's Manero, and to some degree the film's Manero impersonation contest during the film's climax. But when "Tony Manero" turns into Peralta's maddening ways it deteriorates into a big slap on the face on the Fever legacy. Overall, "Tony Manero" is a feverless 2009 movie odyssey that is not worth taking.

*** Average.