Reviews of Today’s AFI Film Fest
Following are capsule reviews of today’s screenings in the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas:
‘A One Way Ticket’
Dominican Republic, 1988, 92 minutes 9:15 p.m. Based on an appalling real-life episode--the brutal mistreatment of 40 illegal Dominican emigrants to the United States on the ship that was transporting them--director Agilberto Melendez’s film slowly builds up an atmosphere of grim, low-key realism. Melendez doesn’t go for knockout blows; his film seems initially ordinary as he mounts his case, sketching in several dozen participants, showing us the grimy mechanics of corruption and destruction. Where life is cheap and only money talks, the film quietly states, lives are not only cheapened, but expendable.
RECOMMENDED.
Only good movies
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