The Candidate

With a slightly shaky cam, a monotonous thumping techno score and some of the best performances of this year, we are introduced to a group of Spanish politicians with a serious fraudulent past. Their arrogance and naive feeling of invincibility is soon destroyed, when all their corrupt businesses are slowly brought to the attention of the press.

The gravity of the situation only hits the audience when it hits the characters: too late. In over their head with only a couple of options to save their own skin, they are put before several moral questions that will have you bite your finger nails the whole ride.

Manuel, the main character, seems a true human being that could have walked out of a real life politics debate for all we know. Antonio de la Torre's performance is out of this world! But not only he deserves credit for his amazing acting. No one ever misses a note and the result is a film full of conflicting personal relationships that are realistic in a rather scary way.

The music is a bit of a bummer though... The techno-beats never build up towards a finale, while the movie itself is a thrilling rollercoaster that ends in a frontal collision with a brick wall. This - as I already mentioned - monotonous score doesn't improve the movie one bit.

But the directing by Rodrigo Sorogoyen is compelling. He made a political scandal into a grand fight between rivals and friends. There is no violence. But I held my breath for the complete final hour. The ending was a bit too suden for my taste though.

Yet, I cannot stress this enough: it was rousing, it was absolutely riveting.