Wednesday, April 15, 2015

One for the Road (orig. En el Último Trago) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmAffinity.com/es listing*

Chilango.com (J. Pérez) review*
CineGarage.com review*
CinemaTradicional.com (A. Acuña Navarijo) review*
CinePremiere.com.mx (A. Magaña) review*
CorreCamera.com (D. Farjí) review*
CorreCamera.com (H Lara) review*
El Rincón de Dacne (C. Bernal Romero) review*
El Universal.com.mx (J. Mérida) review*
Hoy (G. Orozco) review*


One for the Road (orig. En el Último Trago) [2014] [IMDb] [FAes]* (directed and cowritten by Jack Zagha Kababie [IMDb] [FAes]* along with David Desloa [IMDb] and Yossy Zagha Kababie [IMDb]) is a lovely / nostalgic OCTOGENARIAN COMEDY and "BUDDY" / "ROAD TRIP" movie from MEXICO that played recently at the 2015 - 31st Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Three friends, Emiliano (played by José Carlos Ruiz [IMDb] [FAes]*), Benito (played by Eduardo Manzano [IMDb] [FAes]*) and Agustín (played by Luis Bayardo [IMDb] [FAes]*) embark on a road trip presumably from Mexico City [en.wikip] to Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato [en.wikip] [es.wikip]* to fulfill the dying wish of a fourth buddy Pedro (played by Pedro Weber 'Chatanuga' [IMDb] [FAes]*).

The film opens with Pedro, their friend, playing dominoes with them in some small neighborhood bar somewhere in the D.F., and KNOWING that "his time was near," he orders five tequilas: "But Pedro, with all the medicines that we're taking, YOU KNOW that NONE OF US can drink anymore?" "Guys, I'm not ordering them FOR US, I'm ordering them FOR ME. ;-)" -- and downing them, one by one, one ("Mmm..."), two ("Ahh.." ;-), three ("Okay, now I'm emborrachado" ;-) ;-) -- he continues:

"You know this story, I've told you it at least fifty times," -- the other three roll their eyes because they've heard this story A THOUSAND TIMES ;-) -- "THE CLOSEST I EVER CAME TO _TRUE GREATNESS_ -- [ pause for an appropriate moment of silence ;-) ] -- was ONE NIGHT, ONE CRAZY NIGHT that I spent drinking with José Alfredo Jiménez [es.wikip]*[en.wikip] (a VERY FAMOUS Mariachi singer from Dolores Hidalgo, Gto) ...

... AT THE END OF THAT NIGHT he wrote on a napkin the words to "En El Ultimo Trago" ("The last shot") which became one of his most famous songs [YouTube]
  
... and HE WROTE THE DEDICATION _TO ME_, telling me that this was THE FIRST TIME he ever wrote the song down.  And by all accounts he was right because the song only became a hit many years afterwards...

... ANYWAY ... my dying wish is -- "But you're NOT dying..." "OH YES I AM, just wait ..." -- "take that napkin with that dedication TO ME ;-) and deliver it to his museum there in Dolores Hidalgo.  Have them put it up in a prominent place, so that PEOPLE WILL SEE that dedication, WITH MY NAME ON IT, there at the bottom of napkin, after I'm dead ... "

And, finishing his "last request" to his three fellow octogenarian dominoes partners, he ... has a  heart attack, and ... dies ;-).   One heck of an "último trago" ;-) ;-)

Well, for the other three -- 80+ years old or not -- that was one heck of a dying wish and though Emiliano's ALREADY USING A WALKER ... they decide to fulfill it ;-)

The rest of the movie follows ... often VERY, VERY SLOWLY ... ;-)

This is just a wonderful (and, parents note, at times crude ;-) movie about life-long friendship!

A GREAT, GREAT JOB!


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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