New U.S. Release

Towards Darkness

Hacia la oscuridad

By RONNIE SCHEIB

A Peace Arch Entertainment/Negret Films release of a Negret Films production. Produced by Craig Anderson, Luiza Ricupero. Executive producers, America Ferrera, Brett Etre, Justin Goodman, Randy Holleschau, Daniel Negret, Alex Yanev. Co-producers, Anel Moreno, Antonio Negret, Jenny Sandell. Directed, written by Antonio Negret.
 
With: Roberto Urbina, David Sutcliffe, Tony Plana, William Atherton, America Ferrera, Cameron Daddo, Alejandra Borrero, Fernando Solorzano.
(Spanish, English dialogue)
 

A convoluted bilingual thriller about a kidnapping in Colombia, "Towards Darkness" may be too clever for its own good. Frosh director Antonio Negret intertwines so many disparate characters, each with a flashback-studded backstory, that after a while the exhausted viewer, assaulted by sudden time-jumps, agitated handheld camerawork and tediously protracted suspense, ceases to care. Pic, which preemed at Tribeca last year, opened at Gotham's Quad on March 14, its appeal assuredly enhanced by the presence of exec producer America Ferrera (of "Ugly Betty" fame) and its timeliness fortuitously punched up by recent headlines.

Jose Guiterrez (Roberto Urbina), a 20-something New York photography student, returns to his native Colombia on vacation, only to be kidnapped and held for ransom. Helmer-scribe Negret then constellates an entire world around Jose that interconnects his friends, his Gotham ex-girlfriend, his frantic parents (Tony Plana, Alejandra Borrero), an American special-ops team hired to deliver the ransom, the kidnappers and their network of bosses, hirelings and relatives, assorted warlords, and the cops.

Negret, whose family endured the kidnapping of three of its members and the murder of one, draws from firsthand knowledge of the multiple deadly forces, most of them working at cross-purposes, that have made Colombia one of the most dangerous places on earth.

Lacking the strong formal sense to keep all his narrative balls airborne, Negret piles suspense upon suspense to almost ludicrous effect, intercutting among so many fronts and time periods that one expects a mounted cavalry to appear over the next rise. In fact, a bunch of face-blackened American mercenaries roll out of the hills, with a stray exploding landmine thrown in for f/x.

Although Negret spins an intricate web in which victim and victimizer constantly shift positions, his relative lack of interest in his characters' underlying political motivations renders any mirror-imaging merely circumstantial. Ironic plot twists pile up before any irony can be fully appreciated. The meaning signaled by fetishistic inserts of statues of angels and the Virgin Mary never becomes clear.

Tech credits are uninspired.

Camera (color, HD), John Ealer; editor, Luis Carballar, Paul Carballar, Evan Schiff; music, Chris Westlake; production designer, Jason Sweers; sound (Dolby Digital), Andrew Edelman, Joe Dzuban. Reviewed at Magno Review 2, New York, March 3, 2008. (In 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 92 MIN.