The Dancer Upstairs Poster

The Dancer Upstairs (2002)

Crime | Thriller 
Rayting:   7.0/10 6.3K votes
Country: Spain | USA
Language: English | Quechua
Release date: 8 January 2004

A police detective in a South American country is dedicated to hunting down a revolutionary guerilla leader.

Movie Trailer

Where to Watch

  • Buy
  • Buy
  • Buy

User Reviews

SnoopyStyle 28 December 2016

It's Latin America in the Recent Past. Agustín Rejas (Javier Bardem) is a Sergeant manning a road check. The country is corrupt with a militaristic Presidency. Rejas is a former lawyer ready for a promotion in the capital. A mysterious man with others and a dead dog in a truck escape the checkpoint. Then it's five years later. He's a police Lieutenant. With his young partner Sucre (Juan Diego Botto), he's investigating a mysterious revolutionary group led by Ezequiel. They hang dogs from the lamp posts. The violence escalates as leaders get assassinated. Yolanda (Laura Morante) is Rejas' daughter Laura's dance teacher. He begins an affair with her as he suspects her connection to Ezequiel.

The non-specificity of the time and place could have been improved by weaving the real story into this movie. It doesn't have to be perfect and most movies aren't real biographies anyways. The great aspect of this is Bardem and the sense of Latin America that this projects. John Malkovich is directing for the first time and he shows some competency. It is well-made and most importantly, he focuses on Bardem. The story does leave some questions. The ballet teacher's connections to everyone is very convenient. The investigation is not that clear. I don't know how nebulous the book is but adapting may have left something out of the movie. It would help to have great clarity, and better intensity.

Ataraxia-1 16 May 2003

Fmovies: It was interesting, with some beautiful footage and an interesting, slow pace given the intensity of the plot. However, Malkovich seems to have forgotten an important component of the film: namely, the motivation of the characters. We learn nothing about the characters or their lives or their country. We don't know why there is a Revolution. We don't know why Ezequiel is a compelling leader to this revolution. We don't know why Rejas works so hard at finding Ezequiel, given a total lack of support for his efforts on behalf of his country. We don't know why he is dissatisfied with his relationship with his wife. We don't know why he is drawn towards his daughters ballet teacher. We don't know why she is drawn towards Ezequiel.

Adding all of these unknowns up made for a story and characters without much substance; it caused me not to be able to identify with them, and in the end, the story felt as "fake" as the unnamed latin country. I kept thinking of "Moon Over Parador" which I am certain is not the imagery that Malkovich wanted me to have.

rogerdarlington 13 December 2002

Acclaimed actor John Malkovich has made his directorial debut with an assured political thriller that combines tension and intelligence to make for a gripping two and a quarter hours. The setting is a South American country which is unnamed, but the clear inspiration for the storyline is the early 1990s experience of Peru (which I have recently visited) when the bizarre Abimael Guzman led the murderous Shining Path movement, while the movie was shot in Spain, Portugal and Ecuador.

Javier Bardem plays Augustin Rejas, a former lawyer turned policeman who manages rare dignity and honesty as he battles with the interventions of a regime teetering on the edge of a military dictatorship and the pursuit of a fanatical revolutionary codenamed Ezekiel, while struggling with the varying emotions associated with a vapid wife, an adoring daughter, and his daughter's dance teacher, the eponymous and allurring woman upstairs (Laura Morante as Yolanda). Bardem - who reminds me of an early Raul Julia - gives a languid yet charismatic performance and hopefully we will see much more of this talented actor.

In some respects the work is reminiscent of Costa-Gavras's "State Of Siege", a clip of which is actually used here. However, the movie is based on a novel by the British writer Nicholas Shakespeare, who wrote the screenplay which features some conversation in Quechua (a native language of Peru and Bolivia), and this is a more personal examination of terrorism than the 1973 movie.

noralee 22 June 2003

The Dancer Upstairs fmovies. The film's trailer, which rain endlessly for months in advance at my local art house, and the reviews, etc., have emphasized this as a political thriller. But in fact it's really in the tradition of "Casablanca," where politics is a constant background to only part of the hero's motivation. I did expect someone to say "Round up the usual suspects!"

Awkwardly in this day and age, the Latino actors in the film's unnamed Latin American country (it was filmed in Ecuador and Madrid) all speak (accented) English, with subtitles to indicate when characters are speaking an Indian dialect, i.e. when the hero lawyer/detective is using his heritage to solve the complex case of politically-motivated murders.

But it's the complex layers that make this more interesting than Costa-Gavras' didactic "State of Siege" that is repeatedly referred to as an inspiration, both to director John Malkovich and the revolutionaries, and making this akin to HBO's "The Wire" in showing how a flawed cop can stick to his professionalism amidst deadly-serious bureaucratic and real politics.

The cop's simplistically drawn Beverly Hills matron-type wife turns out to incidentally help him uncover a clue, as he gradually comprehends the cynicism of a revolution that uses unexpected types of cells for suicide missions, with resonance for the MidEast as well, as ideologues are more diabolically dangerous than criminals.

That the dancer is actually downstairs is emblematic of the film's genre confusion.

Chris_Docker 8 December 2002

Javier Bardem plays a head of police in an unnamed South American country that is teetering between a corrupt government and an even more corrupt revolutionary movement. The film's preoccupations, however, are moral dilemmas and the nature of corruption, the movie's bent is primarily aesthetic, and the acting, screenplay and direction are simply little short superb. The characterisation of a man deeply torn in a search for decency and ultimately failing somewhat through his own higher aspiration is, by Hollywood standards, monumental. This is a film that is at once gripping, original, deep and subtly crafted. The role of the dancer is also, in its own right, a complex one and one which begins to address the nature of evil, the ability of art to take us beyond logic (in both a positive and a dangerous way) and also underlines that art generally, unless specifically directed, is neither good nor evil, but more a door that we can open.

ian_harris 31 December 2002

Very closely based on Guzman and the Shining Path Maoist terrorists in Peru, this movie is compulsive viewing.

The plot is fairly standard good cop tracks down bad guys - there are no bonus points for this plot. Indeed, some of the coincidences that arise as the film goes on are the weakest link in this otherwise near-flawless movie.

There has been much talk about the violent scenes in this movie, which are many, but especially the scenes with animals. My view is that it is no more morally wrong to depict violence to animals than it is to depict violence to humans, as long as no animal (or human) is actually harmed in making the depiction. We are told that none of the animals were harmed in the making of the film (and presumably also none of the people). As far as I am concerned that is the end of that matter - the use of animals, unhamred, for this purpose is acceptable. To argue otherwise I find, frankly, daft. However, I would recommend that people who get particularly upset when violence to animals is depicted should simply avoid this movie.

Back to the movie - the acting and the cinematography are superb. It is gripping - the film is 135 minutes long which is well past my attention span unless the film is really good. This film is just that.

Similar Movies

5.6
Memory

Memory 2022

6.0
Valimai

Valimai 2022

5.7
Windfall

Windfall 2022

5.8
Restless

Restless 2022

6.9
The Bezonians

The Bezonians 2021

8.6
Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana

Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana 2021

6.2
Yara

Yara 2021

7.6
Sunny

Sunny 2021


Share Post

Direct Link

Markdown Link (reddit comments)

HTML (website / blogs)

BBCode (message boards & forums)

Watch Movies Online | Privacy Policy
Fmovies.guru provides links to other sites on the internet and doesn't host any files itself.