SCATHING indictment of the tabloid media! Film at 11!
That’s how “Crónicas” sees itself, but all I could see was a scathing indictment of writer-director Sebastian Cordero’s ability to put together a credible story.
John Leguizamo plays Manolo, a reporter for a Spanish-language tabloid TV show who’s in Ecuador to cover the case of “the monster,” a serial killer who preys on children. Manolo stumbles across a traveling Bible salesman, jailed after he accidentally ran over the twin brother of one of the murdered children.
The salesman, Vinicio (Damian Alcazar), seems to know an awful lot about “the monster,” such as where he buried a corpse the police haven’t found yet and even the killer’s thoughts and feelings. He gives Manolo these tidbits, which he claims to have gotten from a vaguely described hitchhiker, because he has some bizarre notion that this self-incriminating tale will clear his own name.
The more Vinicio talks, the worse he looks. Any tabloid reporter I’ve ever met would inform the police, file a story about how he solved this week’s crime of the century and start looking into beachfront property to buy with his book advance.
Instead, Leguizamo’s character inexplicably stalls, lies to the police and obstructs their investigation while developing the story. Even in Ecuador, these tactics seem far more likely to lead to a prison sentence than the Hamptons. If the absurdity of Manolo’s actions weren’t enough, every few minutes we’re diverted into dead ends. Everyone keeps talking about a kidnapping crisis in Colombia that turns out to lead nowhere; Manolo and his sexy field producer, who’s married to their show’s anchor (Alfred Molina), have a brief affair that’s without consequences.
The only point of “Crónicas” is to use tabloid tactics to stoke our hatred of tabloid TV. It joins the curious subgenre of failed films like “Mad City” and “Natural Born Killers” that try to persuade us that we should be less outraged by sensational crimes than the coverage of same.
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CR”NICAS
[*] (One star)
Soft copy. In Spanish, with English subtitles. Run ning time: 98 minutes. Rated R (profan ity, violence, sexual situations). At the Angelika and the Empire.