Review of Wild Tales (2014) by Kyle B — 28 Mar 2015

Well that was interesting. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised that a movie this dark and cynical got an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film (although I doubt that the Academy members really watch all of the movies).

Anyways, Wild Tales is a really entertaining and quite twisted batch of fun. Five out of its six vignettes work, and those that do work really well, ranging from solid to hilarious. The average short is about twenty minutes and despite their simplistic setups, writer/director Damian Szifron's creative edge keeps a majority of the content fresh and pleasantly ridiculous.

The only real issue is that second-to-last short is underwhelming in edge and execution, slightly hindering the overall pacing. Once the film's first short begins--a prologue of sorts--you know that this is going to be bonkers.

To avoid spoilers, all I'll say is that it involves a plane full of strangers that are all traveling together due to a mutual peer of theirs. The next involves a waitress at diner that is forced to serve a man that ruined her family's life, leading her co-worker to try to poison him.

The third story (and the most hilarious) involves a rich man that insults a "fucking redneck," and as he gets a flat tire on the highway, he starts to get attacked by the man he previously offended.

The brilliance of this story is its endless energy and creativity, morphing set pieces into plot pieces and continually upping the ante both in terms of slapstick and "WTF"-ness. I can assure you that no one in my audience would have predicted what happens.

The next involves a man's relentless quest to overturn his parking ticket, and the next involves a rich father trying to hide his son's involvement in a drunk hit-and-run accident that killed a pregnant woman.

That second one is the closest that the film goes to mean-spiritedness, but it just barely avoids it. However, it's the one that isn't quite that interesting and ends up hurting the pace of the overall movie.

It maybe has a giggle or two but is the only one that I kind of wanted to speed through. The final short tells the tale of a wedding where the bride learns of the groom's infidelity, leading to chaos.

This is possibly the darkest, but its cartoonishness works in its favor. If you like messed up humor with an acerbic edge, then Wild Tales is definitely worth checking out. Your having to read subtitles throughout doesn't at all interfere with its physical or visual comedy, and if you know the type of odd content that its 122-minute runtime fills, you'll likely know just enough about it to enjoy it without spoiling the fun.

8/10, really good, one thumb up, above average, etc.