Retribution

A thriller set in Spain. Carlos is a bank executive. He is taking his children to school this morning. They get into the car. His daughter in the back, his son beside him. The phone rings. A voice speaks. He says there is a bomb under the seat. If he gets up it goes off. A sum of money is demanded. The time is short. From there the film takes place in the car. Traffic, lights, the city, and a telephone that never stops. Carlos calls the bank. He has to find the money and his access to the accounts is limited. At the same time he explains nothing to his children. His daughter is frightened, his son understands something is wrong. The voice asks him questions. The questions become steadily more personal. The matter is not money. The narrative opens a fact backwards. There was a product Carlos sold at the bank and people lost everything because of it. What the narrative is interested in is not a bomb but responsibility: its idea is that the man's work had a victim and that he never knew the victim's name. Carlos defends himself. It was legal, everyone did it, nobody was forced. That defence is demolished several times over. A second car comes in. There is another person in the same situation. The police understand late. The city is closed and the situation becomes a public matter. The ending gives no easy justice. The structure is very tight. The film runs nearly in real time and the location is mostly one. Luis Tosar is in almost every frame and the part rests entirely on him. Dani de la Torre directed; it is his first feature. Luis Tosar, Javier Gutiérrez, Goya Toledo, Paula del Río and Marco Sanz are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes confined thrillers and Spanish cinema after the crash. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the plot grows in the last section and some of its solutions come too easily.