# Men with Guns (1997/II)

### reviewed by
Eric Lurio

    review (c)1998 eric lurio

    Men With Guns

    Written, directed and edited by
    John Sayles

The film begins with a Mother(Iguandili Lopez) and Daughter(Nandi Luna Ramirez) making tortillas in the jungle. They are discussing the impending arrival of a doctor. This a very alien jungle, and this is a very alien movie.

The doctor is Humberto Fuentes(Federico Luppi), a white haired widower who's in need of a vacation. Usually he and his wife would go to the beach, but this year, the first on his own, he decides to visit some students of his who he thinks are in the mountains. Their training was paid for by the `progress for peace' program from the USA.

Everyone he knows tells him not to do it. There are rumors of atrocities he does not belive. Then he sees an ex-student(Roberto Sosa) in the street and follows him. He confirms the rumor.

But the good doctor still refuses to belive, and heads off into the bush.

The quest for the other students begin.

John Sayles is a great but perverse writer. He begins the journey with the comic relief. Andrew (Mandy Patinkin) and Harriet(Kathryn Grody) are two lefty tourists who keep popping up at the weirdest times. They also get some of the best lines [how do you say fajita in spanish?].

But most of the rest of the movie isn't at all funny. At his first stop, the people are all afraid of him except a blind woman(Lolo Navarro), who tells him that the second of his students has gone off to ‘school.'

A young boy named Conejo(Dan Rivera Gonzalez) agrees, for a fee, to show him where the school is. And tell him what really happened.

Through a series of adventures, Conejo and the Doctor collect more companions: Domingo, the soldier(Damian Delgado), who originally stole the doctors tires, then his money, and needs him to tend his wound, Padre Portillo, (Damian Alcazar) a priest on the run from the men in the title, and finally, Graciela(Tania Cruz) rendered mute since she was raped by Domingo.

Each has a story, told either out loud or in flashback. All are interesting.

The ending is a revelation. Don't mind the subtitles, they work.

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