ReganRebecca
In a small fishing village 4 men and 1 woman cohabitate in a house. Their greatest joy in life is training and racing a small greyhound they collectively own, and they hold ambitions of buying and training more dogs so they can make more money. But their peaceful existence is broken when a another man comes to join their ranks. He, like the other men, is fallen member of the holy order, and though they are immediately suspicious of him, they put on a brave face. It isn't long however, before a victim of this new arrival literally shows up on their doorstep, shouting about the ways in which he was victimized and refusing to go away. What happens next shakes the little club to their core and disrupts their pleasant way of life. This is a movie about some thoroughly unpleasant people. There is no one really to root for. The men and woman seem benign at first, but as they continue to talk they expose themselves for the greedy, selfish, self-interested people they are. While they have been taken out of commission and sequestered in a house, ostensibly to do penance, they have instead carved out a cushy life for themselves, each one privately convinced that they are in actual fact good, and are locked up with a bunch of degenerates. While the film is beautifully shot, this is a film where the strength lies in the acting and the script. While not visually graphic the film has some very graphic dialogue about the crimes of some of the priests which are about what you would expect given the history of pedophilia in the Catholic church. It's a slow burn of a movie, but the more you watch the more you will feel disturbed as the members of the club expose themselves for who they really are.
logatherum
"El Club" had a few main themes, those being religion, irony, secrets and guilt. A lot of viewers have actually said that this film was made to expose the Catholic church and make it look bad. I agree with this statement, because so many events that happened in it were ironic, because there were things done and said by priests (whom this movie focused on) that would not typically qualify as 'holy' in my opinion. El Club is about four old, retired (and at least one gay) Catholic priests living in a house, ("the club") in a secluded, beachy and foggy area in Chile. The house is run by a woman surprisingly, whom is a retired nun, making up all the rules, one being that there was no contact with the outside world unless they were in their circle of religious figures. The group loves racing dogs, which seems to be a shared passion for all of them, (which I thought was a bit strange and random.) They have a strict schedule that forces free time to mold around their duties of praying. However, the reason this house is secluded is because the men are secretly there to ask God to forgive them for their sins, which are actually horrible crimes. These priests are guilty of child molestation, abuse, kidnapping, etc. Early in the movie, a new priest comes into the house, but his sins follow him. A now grown man stands outside the house yelling about the very graphic and horrendous sex abuse he endured as an altar boy from this new priest. However, the priest cannot seemingly stand his guilt, and quickly shoots himself in front of everybody. This is when I realized that this movie is extremely messed up, because later when the police were questioning the others in the house about why he was dead, the nun and other priests lied to cover up the abuse and crimes he had committed. When a new director comes in he sees the dysfunction, and wants to shut down the home. This film then follows the journey of their dog racing, trying to save the home, and the life of the angry man who was abused sexually by the dead priest. I liked this film, but I liked it less and less as it progressed. I found the point of the ending very confusing and it honestly lost me. This was possibly because there was very little dialogue between characters, and when there was, it was short. It ended with men killing the race dogs, blaming it on the man whom was abused and then him being ironically brought to repent his 'sins' in the house with the other four priests. I really loved the beginning, however, and my favorite scene was when the man was outside the home screaming the sex abuse he endured to his molester. I found this very interesting, because not only were the poor man's words very graphic and "unholy" but, as he was yelling them, the priest (his molester) was denying it to his housemates. I thought that when he grabbed the gun he was going to shoot the man yelling outside the house, but actually shot himself, which I was not expecting. I also liked when the nun was cleaning up his blood, she was singing very peaceful church songs. This film was very bizarre, weird and sexual, which I found ironic. I wish that the director had left out the theme of the dog racing because it just confused me and made the main theme of secrecy between priests less prominent and blurry.
Reno Rangan
Sadly, this is the most boring film I have seen in the last 12 months. I have enjoyed many films what others called the worst film of the year. That means I love to take chances, but I was surprised for this which is the least liked by me from the year 2015.I usually respect films and filmmaking, so I thought to skip reviewing it than writing negatives about it, but then I thought I hadn't written much for the disliked films. Realised I should not go like this being neutral, because I collect my reviews and I wanted all kinds like good, bad, average for my basket.I never considered myself an atheist or a theist, just a form of a life on the planet earth, so it's nothing to do with the religion for my viewpoint on this. This drama about the corrupted priests was not like I expected, I kind liked the theme, but not the overall film.It was sent to represent Chile in the recently concluded Oscars, which was a similar theme to the top award winner 'Spotlight' but failed to qualify for the main event. If it was based on the real then my reaction would have been different.They have tried it with a dark comedy that I was not impressed with the overall presentation. But there were a very few good scenes and it was not enough to win me. I know the majority of those who had watched the film are saying many good stuffs about it, looks like I might be the lone black spot around here that deserves dislike votes, so come guys!! Do it!3/10