My original plan was to not review the movies that really didn’t cause much of an impression with me. These are the movies that I did not really enjoy nor did I dislike like them. I’ve got a few minutes before my next movie start and not enough time to write a larger review so I figure I might as well mention the Chilean movie Tony Manero. Tony Manero fell completely flat with me as I felt no connection to the characters nor did I enjoy the cinematography.

Tony Manero tells the story of a 52 year old Chilean man who is the head of a very small and very poor Chilean dance troupe. Raul has become fixated with the John Travolta’s Tony Manero character from Saturday Night Fever and wishes to become him. His whole life revolves around getting ready for a television contest which will fully validate his existence if he wins the dance impersonation contest.

Personally the whole movie fell flat. I felt no connection to the characters. I did not understand what the dance troupe saw in him and I felt the relationships between the characters were not developed well enough.

I want to include a quote from the official TIFF write up for Tony Manero:

Set in 1978 during Augusto Pinochet’s oppressive reign over Chile, Tony Manero explores the sort of ruthless society that is created when people are too afraid to speak their minds, and are threatened with death, torture and abduction.

The whole societal aspect of the movie also fell flat for me. Perhaps if I understood more of what was going on under Pinochet’s rule I would have been drawn in more but unfortunately that did not happen.

Tony Manero was the first movie that just did not succeed for me at TIFF. I do think it will play a bit better for those who fully understand the culture and history of Chile but as a general movie goer I’m going to say give this one a pass.