Meu Tio Matou um Cara (2004) User Reviews

Furtado's equation: wit+pace=fun

[debblyst · 7/10 · 28 June 2007]

Another witty, romantic, funny, lightweight teen-oriented film directed and written by Jorge Furtado, combining love triangles, comedy, adventure and social commentary, and featuring his great ear for dialog (he's the smartest comedy writer working in Brazilian cinema today). Here, Furtado once again explores his trade-mark ersatz Cartesian logic construction of the narrative (which he's been developing since his famous, ground-breaking 1989 short "Ilha das Flores"): he makes ordinary stories look fresh by refusing linearity and taking time to consider the "what if" factor; his plots develop in bifurcations, they take side roads. When it seems we're lost in a maze, he throws us Ariadne's thread to a safe exit (his non-corny, unaffected happy-endings) -- but we don't feel fooled, we follow him with a smile.

The cast is firmly lead by teenagers Darlan Cunha (his nonchalant, minimal acting is perfect for the part) and Sophia Reis (lovely without being "cute"), with Deborah Secco looking very sexy and overrated Lázaro Ramos doing what he does best: comedy. There's a lull in the final act, with too many songs commenting the action and plot holes that require a considerable suspension of disbelief, but the pace and editing are so swift and the mood so joyful that by then we're bought. This is Brazilian commercial cinema at its best: sunny, funny, smart, unpretentious, well-made.

When your uncle arrives your home and just says: "I killed a guy!"

[mario_c · 8/10 · 27 February 2007]

Duca (Darlan Cunha) is a smart boy which lives with his parents. His life is about to change when his uncle (Lázaro Ramos), suddenly, arrives his parents' home and says: "I killed a guy!". The man says that he killed his girlfriend's former husband as self-defence. Smart as he is, the boy will try to help his uncle to not be arrested by the police, but at the same time, he finds out some mistakes in his uncle's story, and that probably things didn't happen just as his uncle told. He tells about this story to his friends, Isa (a girl for whom he has a crush), and kid (the guy for whom Isa has a crush!), and decides to start his own investigation…

This movie is very good because it mixes an entertaining teenage adventure's story with a description – wonderfully done at parts – of some issues of nowadays society (in this particular case, the Brazilian society). Besides, it has an excellent sense of humour, which is used as a "weapon" to criticize several points of that society.

Almost all actors are known from the Brazilian TV series/shows. I just didn't know the girl who plays Isa's role (Sophia Reis), but all of them did an excellent job, that's for sure! That's one more excellent film from Brazil!

Another Excellent Movie of Jorge Furtado

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 12 March 2006]

Duca (Darlan Cunha) is a smart teenager that lives in Porto Alegre with his father Laerte (Airton Graça) and his mother Cléia (Dira Paes). His best friends are the also teenagers Isa (Sophia Reis), for whom he has a crush, and Kid (Renan Augusto), for whom Isa has a crush. One night, his uncle Éder (Lázaro Ramos) visits his family and informs that he has just killed the former husband of his girlfriend Soraia (Deborah Secco). Duca finds mistakes in the story told by his uncle, and decides to investigate the tragic event.

Jorge Furtado is certainly one of the best contemporary Brazilian directors and screenplay writers. He is very sensitive to the Brazilian social problems, using many of ours daily and common situations in his well-paced and ironical movies. "Meu Tio Matou Um Cara" is a very funny story, with many jokes. For example, he criticizes the exaggerated concern with racism in Brazilian society in the beginning of the movie; the piracy of CDs, but also the prices of the original CDs - the youngsters prefer to buy four pirates CDs instead of only one original CD, which is an incorrect reality that does exist; he jokes with the efficiency of our police, since a smart teenager is capable to easily resolve a crime and disclose the truth. The cast is wonderful, having very natural performances. For those viewers not familiarized with Jorge Furtado, I highly recommend his delightful romantic-comedy "Houve Uma Vez Dois Verões" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0322629/usercomments-2) and mainly his masterpiece, his dramatic romantic-comedy "O Homem Que Copiava" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367859/usercomments-11). I do not know whether there is international distribution of these excellent movies. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Meu Tio Matou Um Cara" ("My Uncle Killed a Guy")

description layer

[RResende · 29 December 2011]

Narrative is the soul of a film, isn't it? Even when that near evidence is contested by the filmmaker, we seem to want to find a story wherever. Is that hardwired in our imagination? is it a cultural acquisition? It's meaningless. We do find stories, and that is important if we want to understand where most of our art comes from.

Cinema is, so far, the ultimate narrative medium, the one where the deepest transformations have been invested, in terms of storytelling, narrative invention, etc. That's because cinema is a conglomerate of other activities, with millenniums of existence, plus the power of moving image, something always wished, but never achieved until cinema appeared (some cave paintings already tried to replicate movement!).

So, if you are serious in seeing films, and understanding the medium, you have to wonder about how the story of storytelling evolved. Some names are fundamental. Others not so much. Jorge Furtado is one of this latest. He's is relatively unknown outside Brazil, but I do think that anyone should be exposed to his work. He is one of the most clever film writers ever. I mean ever. More than 20 years ago, while still not making features, Furtado created a memorable short piece, Ilha das Flores. There he picked up on something Welles had been doing in the 70', and thinking about it since the 50'. What has been commonly known as "film-essay" is where Furtado left advertising and entered cinema. And he hasn't left that world ever since, having written golden pages and pushed the medium a huge leap ahead. That's how much I admire his work, how much i take him into consideration.

This film is another exercise in narrative layering, narrative stance, and self-reference. All in one. We start with a regular story, here about a supposed murder. This story is already filled of versions, which we get to know as the film develops. The uncle's version is full of gaps, and we get successive evolutions to the initial statement "I killed a guy". Than, Furtado centers the film on a character, stranger to this main storyline that we pitched. We hear the inner voice of that character. He'll be our designated detective, our surrogate on-screen. But that voice never narrates what we see. Instead it comments on what we see, intersecting it and mixing it with outside references, filmic or not. A voice that comments on the main story and its characters. So that's 2 layers now, one of them purely self-referential. Add to it the story of this narrator character, something to do with teenage (mis)adventures and love stories. Now it's a third story, a third layer, which will punctually intersect the first one, and even overlap it from a certain moment on. The second layer, that of the inner voice, is all around, soaking the other two and how we watch the film.

**spoilers** The convincing ending (from a cinematic point of view) comes out of the successful overlapping of all the layers, to allow for a funny (from genre's point of view) conclusion, which is itself highly self-referential: what gives away the whole plot is a set of photographs, who reveal both Kid and Soraia. Those photographs, documenting an event we never actually see except by glimpses, given to us after the conclusion, have an order that matters and tells a story, a 4th narrative layer that concludes the other 2. There's a funny side play with the photos, that tell a different story when its order is changed, thus helping the uncle to maintain his status as an idiot.

As a film, for what it means, this is pretty superficial, even meaningless. Funny and juicy, but not deep. As cinematic exercise in narrative layering, this is truly powerful, as anything conceived by Furtado.

My opinion: 4/5

Good, but Furtado's worst one

[movielover-dude · 10/10 · 5 August 2005]

This movie is very nice-looking and very good-humored. But, being good-humored doesn't suggest it's funny. The only funny parts are the ones we see Renan Gioelli and Ailton Graça; although they don't have any scenes together. So let's see the story: Duca (Darlan Cunha, very sleepy), his father Laerte (Ailton Graça, excellent, but not brilliant), his mother Cleia (Dira Paes, nothing unusual), and his uncle Eder (Lazaro Ramos, not so good and supposedly the "male lead"), are all black. The story begins when Eder enters his brother's apartment (his brother is Laerte) and the first thing he says is "I killed a guy". Then the story introduces us to Duca's best friends: Kid (Renan Gioelli) and Isa (Sophia Reis). Duca secretly loves Isa. Isa secretly loves Kid. Kid doesn't hide from anyone that he loves all girls. During the movie--short movie, it has 80 minutes of picture, plus 5 of credits--we see Duca trying to "seduce" Isa--for lack of a better word--and how Isa and Kid help (or bother) Duce while he tries to solve his uncle's misunderstood story. There are some (weak) surprises as the movie goes and my favorite scene is the last, which is about two minutes long and shot in one shot. 'Course I won't tell what happens in this scene. In the DVD, there is a special feature, that shows the actors improvising their characters as if they were making a testimony for something, but in it they just comment the other characters by their point-of-view. Very funny. Then, there's the production part. The camera is clearly visible twice in the movie (both of them reflected in cars) and the score (not the songs) sometimes doesn't tie with the scene's thematic. But, hey, it's not just bad things. The editing is very precise (check out that scene where we see Éder exiting frame from left as the same Éder is entering frame from right). Art direction is nice. Costumes are very alike normal middle-class Brazilian teenagers. Jorge Furtado's directing is functional. Let's review the acting: Darlan Cunha--just bad; Sophia Reis--shows a lot of talent in her first feature; Renan Gioelli--particularly I think he's the best actor in the film; Ailton Graça--good supporting work; Dira Paes--nothing new; Lazaro Ramos--now, this guy is awful; Deborah Secco--she's as awful as Lazaro Ramos. But, the biggest problem in the film is the screenplay. It just doesn't get us excited.

Better than expected

[pmdawn · 5/10 · 16 January 2005]

This film, unlike Furtado's previous feature (The man who copied) is very well paced. It's a teenage flick really, although you might think otherwise because of its title. The crime-mystery element in the plot is only a diversion from the main theme: an underdog story.

There are some really funny lines in it, and it's a good thing the director decided to make it a "real movie", without any miraculous deus ex-machina solutions and unnecessary plot "twists". Hopefully his next film will be even better.

The acting is very good, and at times the situations portrayed bothered me, because they seemed so real. The ending could have been better but it makes you leave the theater satisfied. Good entertainment, but nothing extraordinary.

A shame to the Brazilian movie scene

[megareefer · 1/10 · 22 July 2009]

Even if 99,99% of people that has seen this movie is Brazilian, I'll keep up with the English since it is the language of this website.

This movie is a piece of cr*p. Worst acting I have seen for a loooong time. The kids are terrible. Specially the boy. This was the first time I saw someone with less facial expression than Arnold Schwarzenegger, and one single voice tone, like a 5 years-old kid reading in front of the class. How can someone so bad be the main actor of a movie ? The storyline is so shallow my daughter could have done better (she is 3 yrs old). It is so simple it could be written in a napkin and told in 3 minutes.

There are only three possibilities for someone enjoy this movie: 1) you are a pre-teen; 2) you have been so brainwashed by Globo's stupidities that you think that anything that has the Globo's seal is awesome; 3) you have a serious brain damage.

Avoid at all costs ! A shame to the Brazilian movie scene.

Unnecessary sexuality and a shallow story

[jonathansimoes · 5/10 · 9 September 2005]

Brasil is worldwide famous for soap-operas, and inside the country its a passion. I believe this movie follows a soap-opera style, with a boring story and free semi-nudes scenes from the gorgeous Deborah Secco. I say free cause they got nothing to do with the movie, they are totally out of context. The teen movie approach was not very well announced and I happened to watch it with wrong idea, thinking that it were a movie based on feelings, good script and nice acting, like the Brazilian movie industry is very well based on. It isn't a bad movie, it's just not quite good to theaters...a TV series would be enough. And we're also used to very good movies from Brasil these days, which helped to decrease my feelings for Meu tio matou um Cara.