Name: ¡Esto es un atraco!
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1987-05-14
Duration: 1 h 30 min
Rating: 5
Cast: Antonio Ozores, Fernando Conde, Alfonso del Real

A little budget but amusing Mariano Ozores movie parodying a botcher heist

This is a fun and funny comedy with several bewildering and hilarious set pieces , social critique on economical crisis , lots of laughs and anything else .It deals with a group of wretched people (Antonio Ozores , Juanito Navarro, Antonio del Real , Fernando Conde of ¨Martes y trece¨, Flavia Zarzo, daughter of the notorious secondary actor Manuel Zarzo) they are visited - one by one- by a beautiful woman (Fedra Lorente) who offers them 55 kilos of gold bars with a value of 240 million pesetas, corresponding to 32 million each. For the robbery, they have to be nicknamed under false names and must be dressed as firefighters. Of course, things go wrong , including twists , turns , crosses and double-crosses.

The film was intended above all for people who at the time went to video stores in the 80s, which was a lot. A likable and diverting farce about robbery sub-genre with offbeat as well as sympathetic characterizations. Regarding a disconcerting group of unlucky people carry out a heist with unexpected consequences . It deals with a beloved group of characters , as a band of poor underdogs who join and all of them decide to rob a wealthy magnate played by Spaghetti/Paella Western regular : Eduardo Fajardo. The problems start when they try to make their plans reality and realize that they are taking a fortune : amount of millions of pesetas . This agreeable picture made in similar style to classic ¨José Maria Forqué's Atraco a las Tres¨, concerning a hold-up pulled off by a bunch of unfortunate as well as bungling people , but things go awry . There are some nice jokes in the film and the cast , playing eccentric characters , make a cosy fit . It takes a simple concept , a peculiar robbing , being schemed , planned and proceeded by botcher people and in the wake of Italian vintage films as ¨Rufufu¨ (1956) , a great Comedia all'Italiana by Mario Monicelli ; this latter was a brilliant parody to French production titled ¨Rififi¨(1956) by Jules Dassin . This "Esto es un atraco" bears remarkable resemblance to previous ¨Todos al suelo (1982)¨ also directed by Ozores , both of them are comical and sometimes non-sense accounts of a bunch of lower class people from the personal , social , cultural , and economic perspective , because needing all of them , urgently, amount of money to resolve their problematic lives . This film packs extreme craziness, strange situations , swift frames , twists and turns ; but it especially contains catching touches of humor and irony . Cheesy as well as funny screenplay by prolific writer/director Mariano Ozores ; being poorly made and adapted to Spanish characteristics by that time . The flick interweaves fun comedy along with a social criticism about the Spanish economic crisis in the Eighties and a lot of fun . This film is made to entertain , and this movie , especially for a good time and a pleasant entertainment . The flick contains silly incidents , fun plot twists , tongue-in-cheek , grotesque situations and above all , humor in the most outlandish heist ever made . Sitting in a strange middle ground between the completely absurd and the stylishly cool . This film moves in fits and starts most of which would be desirable and some moments of enjoyment and others quite a few ridiculous . The characters are quite odd , underdog and geek and the film races on at incredible speed . Filmmaker Ozores delivers a so-so comedy in shoestring budget and in which the main and support cast are pretty well . The main attraction resides in its excellent main and support cast in which stands out Antonio Ozores . And a fundamental entertainment of the film is to guess who's the next familiar 50s , 60s , 70s and 80s secondary actor appearing throughout the film , as follows : Fernando Conde , Alfonso del Real , José Lifante , Marisol Ayuso , Fedra Lorente, Eduardo Fajardo, Isabel Prinz , Juanito Navarro , among others.

It contains an atmospheric cinematography by prolific cameraman Manuel Mateos . As well as an evocative musical score composed by Gregorio Garcia Segura . The picture was middlingly directed by the Stajanovist filmmaker Mariano Ozores, though it failed at boxoffice and it results to be an obscure film . Mariano directed a large number of comedies and in 1964 shot a Sci-fi flick : La hora incognita . As Mariano Ozores wrote , produced and directed the former movie, but was a real flop and he was bankrupt. Then Mariano promised at the future only to make comedies . Although it won prize of the National Syndicate of Spectacle to best actor José Luis Ozores and Best artistic Achievement . Mariano recently won a Goya Award (2016) to his long and fruitful career . Ozores made with two famous comedians , -Fernando Esteso and Andres Pajares- several successful films , as they had various years partnership between the two leads , such as ¨Agitese Antes Usarla¨ , ¨Al Este Del Oeste¨, ¨Los Liantes¨, ¨Los Energeticos¨, ¨La Lola Lleva Al Huerto¨ , ¨El Currante¨ , ¨El Hijo Del Cura¨...these films are filled with humor that still holds up , especially for those not easily offended . Mariano directed 93 films , most of them were comedies , though made some dramas as "Alegre Juventud" and "Las Dos y Media y veneno" with José Luis Ozores. Mariano directed a lot of comedies for the greatest Spanish comedians as Paco Martinez Soria , José Luis López Vázquez , Lina Morgan , Alfredo Landa , Jose Sacristán and the successful duo : Fernando Esteso and Andrés Pajares.

Spanish-language cinema across Spain and Latin America is united by its engagement with history, cultural identity, and social transformation. In Spain, films often balance artistic experimentation with popular genres while reflecting on memory, politics, and family. In Latin America, cinema has been deeply tied to questions of colonial legacy, resistance, and community resilience, ranging from intimate dramas to bold political allegories.

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The comedy genre refers to a category of entertainment that aims to amuse and entertain audiences by using humor, wit, and comedic situations. Comedies are created with the primary intention of eliciting laughter and providing lighthearted enjoyment. They encompass a wide range of styles, tones, and themes, appealing to various tastes and audiences.

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¡Esto es un atraco!

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