Timecrimes

2007 Spanish time travel movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Hector, a really dumb middle-aged gentleman, doesn't seem to do much. He makes a mess in his driveway, tries to take a nap, and lounges in a lawn chair in his backyard. It's while engaging in the latter that he spots a woman stripping in the woods. After his wife takes off, he decides to investigate further. When he finds her, a man with pink bandages attacks him with a pair of scissors and he flees, eventually arriving at some kind of research laboratory and getting in a time machine. Things get confusing.

This, an enjoyable if flawed puzzling mindbender here, one of those time travel yarns where the story loops on itself a few times, will likely be the best movie I see all year directed by a guy named Nacho. The main flaw is with our protagonist Hector. Very few decisions he makes in this story make sense. The movie sets up this paradox, fiddling with the old noggin, and is entertaining even when you know what's going to happen. There just has to be plot holes, but I don't want to think about it that closely. It's a concise and dense little psychological thriller, working almost as a modern sci-fi parable, but it doesn't have a lot of depth and has a maleficent punchline. Despite playing a dumb character, I thought Karra Elejalde did a good job with an at-times physical role, and I really like Barbara Goenaga as "La Chica en el Bosque" and wouldn't mind seeing her breasts in more movies. Nacho himself plays El Joven, but he probably should have found somebody else to take the part. I imagine somebody could watch this and pick it to pieces, but if you like time travel movies and don't mind turning your brain off for an hour and a half while watching one with an especially stupid title, you might like this.

It appears that there will be an American remake of this, probably because people in America don't like to read.