Review: El Bar (The Bar)
A man walks outside a bar in downtown Madrid and is shot dead. Within minutes, a second man, who had gone to help him, is also shot dead. People flee the streets, leaving them unsettlingly empty. Meanwhile, eight people find themselves trapped in the bar, fearful that they, too, might find themselves with a bullet in the head. Welcome to El Bar (The Bar), Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia's initially intriguing but ultimately all-over-the-place thriller.
Why were the men shot? Who shot them? Why are the streets so empty? Is the shooter still out there? Where did the dead bodies go? Why aren't there any news reports of the shootings? These are some questions that occupy most of the film's first half and the exchanges between the group, which is comprised of bar owner Amparo (Terele Pávez), her cowering assistant Sátur (Secun de la Rosa), ex-cops Andrés (Joaquín Climent) and Sergio (Alejandro Awada), housewife Trini (Carmen Machi), Bible-quoting homeless man Israel (Jaime Ordóñez), hipster Nacho (Mario Casas, looking like a hirsute Urkel), and glamorous Elena (Blanca Suárez), who had only gone into the bar in the hopes of recharging her mobile.
For a time, El Bar would seem an amped-up satire about the uncertainty of living in a world where terrorist attacks are more and more commonplace. Suspicions are cast upon Nacho for simply having a beard, then on another because his briefcase might have a bomb. Then they discover there's a ninth person in the bar, a man with bulging eyes and blood seeping out of his ears and mouth who warns them not to touch him before he dies. The group soon begin to suspect that they've been infected with the virus they believe the dead man was carrying, and they soon start turning on one another, with the "infected" group of Nacho, Elena, Sátur, Trini, and Israel forced to sequester themselves in the bar's basement.
This chapter of El Bar is pretty much the same as what came before it, only with less characters and an even more claustrophobic setting. At some point, Israel decides to coat himself in oil and squeeze himself through the naturally too-small hole in the basement floor that will lead to the sewers. His attempt is in vain, though this idea will be reprised with the far more attractive Elena who strips down to her underwear and, in the grand tradition of Euro schlock horror, is shamelessly ogled upon by the camera. Suárez, to her credit, manages not to go as over-the-top as de la Iglesia does with practically everything in the film. Dialogue is screeched, music is an aural harangue, the dinginess and grime are well and truly palpable, the direction so knowingly flashy, and the hysteria is intense to the max. It sort of works...until the combination of all those elements overwhelms and turns everything into a tedious slog.
El Bar (The Bar)
Directed by: Álex de la Iglesia
Written by: Álex de la Iglesia, Jorge Guerricaechevarría
Starring: Blanca Suárez, Mario Casas, Carmen Machi, Secun de la Rosa, Jaime Ordóñez, Terele Pávez, Joaquín Climent, Alejandro Awada
