El crack

Plot synopsis:
The whole story takes place in Madrid, Spain and New York in December 1980. Germán Areta is a 43-year-old private detective in Madrid. He previously spent 12 years as a Police Detective and now has his own Private Eye agency solving mostly "routine" cases like marital infidelities, working absences, minor celebrity-related information and other matters. Along with him works his employee and "jack-of-all-trades" Cárdenas, (nicknamed El Moro), a chatty and funny man and former car thief, once arrested and after that freed by Germán while he was in the Police. Moro is German's main connection with the underworld and night life.
One day, Francisco Medina, a widower and mysterious man, comes to German's office and asks him to find his daughter, Isabel, who was 17 years old when she ran away two years ago. The only reference he can provide is a former boyfriend she had, Nico, who now works as a radio DJ. Germán comes in contact with him and learns that she became pregnant of him; Nico says he told her that it was fine for him and they could have the baby, but her father opposed and forced her to have an abortion in a London clinic. Just after she recovered from the abortion she run away from home and Nico lost her trail, until half a year later he got word she was in Madrid working in Las Gatitas, a high-end nightclub, as an escort (a barely-legal cover for prostitution).
Indirectly it is shown that, in the best cinema-noir line, Germán is a cold-blooded, hard-boiled man, disenchanted of a lonely life and tired of his dirty work and the violent underworld surrounding it, but nevertheless in his spare time, Germán has a blossoming relationship with Carmen, a nurse he met when he was in hospital some time ago. Carmen has a four-year-old daughter, Maite, born from a former relation with a married doctor. Carmen has not overcome completely the end of that relation, but reveals to Germán she likes being with him, but she still needs some time and patience from him. The detective is so fond of the little girl Maite, he often takes her to or from school and plays with her, and evidently his only moments of real happiness are while being with Carmen and Maite.
El Moro confirms the nightclub lead was correct, but Isabel Medina is not there anymore. He learns that she left and enrolled in a private VIP escort pool which head is Mimí de Torres, the "Madame" of a luxury brothel in the dark but a lady with an impeccable social face up front, and wealthy and powerful customers who have become friends. Germán proceeds to visit Mimí de Torres, but After Germán explains to her the story of Isabel's disappearance and his knowledge of her working for Mimí for some time, Mimí denies everything and dismisses Germán from her house after a brief argument. Not long after, Germán starts receiving pressure from various channels to stop investigating the case of Isabel Medina's disappearance. His former police superior, with whom he still deals now and then as part of his detective job, informally meets him and tells him that "someone from a high spot" is taking an interest in his investigation, and suggests him to stop it at once since Mimí de Torres has powerful friends in politics, financial areas, etc.
Then his former police colleague Alberto "El Guapo", an impeccably-dressed young man now also working free-lance in the Security private sector for some wealthy clients, meets him and after discussing German's confrontation with Mimí de Torres, offers him to join his security group with an excellent wage, with the unspoken condition that he stops the Medina investigation immediately. Germán refuses his offer at once, but wonders what will come next, now that he has turned down the "carrot" offered to him.
When Germán contacts Francisco Medina to speak with him again, he founds out that he is in an hospital ICU, with a terminal illness he had not revealed to Germán. He is aware he has a short time to live and what he wanted is to see his daughter before dying. Nevertheless, Germán speaks hardly to him for not telling him the whole truth about Isabel.
The day after, Cárdenas tells Germán that he has found a good lead from a friend working in bank computer databases. His friend found that Isabel Medina withdraws money from a certain bank office exactly the 17th of each month, which happens to be the next day. Germán and Cárdenas wait the next day in the bank until Isabel shows up; Germán talks to her and says her father is willing to see her and he might not have much time left due to his illness. She says that for her her father died time ago and is not interested in seeing him anymore. Germán now has the sad duty to inform Isabel's father (who is in an almost terminal state by now) that she does not want to see him anyway; after Germán leaves the room he commits suicide by disconnecting his vital support machines.
Although badly, the case seems over for Germán, until while going to the movies with Carmen the next evening he stops looking at a film publicity still in the hall of the Cine Capitol cinema, one of Madrid's most famous. It is a reversed copy of the film's main poster, left being right. Suddenly, he realizes the photo from Isabel Madina he had from her father is mirrored too, and that she is left-handed. Consequently, he realizes the woman he met in the bank was not Isabel since she was clearly right-handed, and it was a set-up.
Someone of high finance areas are involved in the girl's missing case, and as a warning to the detective, a bomb in a car kills Maite. This leaves Areta heartbroken, but more determine than ever to find the truth of what ever happened to Isabel. Germán speaks to one of the men paid by the financier, about Medina's case. The girl died at the hands of financial sadist.
Areta moves to New York in pursue of the responsible for the deaths of Maite and Isabel. At his return to Madrid, Germán rekindles his relationship with Carmen.

Tags: neo noir

Review:
notable Spanish noir film. I don't know why this film is called "El Crack" ("the Crack"). i searched in my English dictionary, and i found that "to crack" is to solve a mystery. probably it refers to that.the film is dedicated to north-American crime-novel writer Dashiell Hammet. i haven't read any novel of Sam Spade... but i have watched The Maltese Falcon, and i found a subtle wink to Bogart character in Garci's movie. i remember that Bogart-Spade had a particular gesture when he was thinking: he scratched his ear. Landa-Areta scratches his mustache.But don't think that El Crack is a film where you cant follow the plot, as in the old Bogart detectives movies... (is a famous anecdote that even Howard Hawks and Raymond Chandler -director and writer respectively- had serious doubts during the filming of THE BIG SLEEP to explain themselves some scenes of the complicated puzzle of its plot). No, the plot is easy to follow in El Crack.José Luis Garci is one of the best directors of the Spanish film industry with no doubt. his films can be easily identified: they are perfectly written (this one was co-written by one of his collaborators, Horacio Varcárcel), with a lot of winks to Hollywood classics and to literature; the rhythm of his films use to be slow (that doesn't mean boring, cause his stories has so much substance that the slow rhythm is necessary to assimilate it); each secondary character of a Garci's film is very detailed and defined.Garci makes in this film a great thing: he saves Landa from the bad movies and bad critics. Alfredo Landa was then, in 1981, a veteran actor that made a lot of stupid comedies during 60's and 70's. apart dubbing some American films and little interventions in some classics as Forqué's ATRACO A LAS TRES, the rest were that stupid comedies... then Garci appears to give him the best part of his career till then. Garci trusted in Landa... and Landa didn't disappointed him. Since then Landa is considered in Spain a great actor (LOS SANTOS INOCENTES, CANCIÓN DE CUNA, LA VAQUILLA...). was definitely forgotten to Spanish film-lovers that epoch of stupid comedy films that one critic called "Landism" El Crack is an notable movie. is entertaining and haven't got old. i think that Garci proposed himself with his movies of then to describe an epoch, the Spanish Transition to democracy. In this particular case he captures Madrid 1981. and he achieved his purpose.Besides he shoots some minutes in New York too. The city of his dreams; he do that with real passion to that city, indeed; but perhaps too with a little message to American Academy members...: "eh, look, here is a young Spanish director, talented, that loves cinema and Hollywood movies as just a few persons in the world". He did the same next year (shoot a part of his film BEGUIN THE BEGUINE in USA; winks to the old Hollywood flavour) and then he got the Oscar.This film is important not only as cinematographic. It has an important sociological and historical...: it captures the Spain of early 80's: costumes, fashions, dresses, cars, radio and TV programs, streets of Madrid...Haven't seen the movie? watch it! :). Well done. I saw this one back in 1981 and it's commercial title was "Diente por Diente" which means a teeth for a teeth. I remember I was quite impressed for the suspenseful quality of his flick. Years later, by the turn of the century, I made a list of several films I had seen in the past and that where in some way outstanding, and of course, "El Crack" was one of them... but it wasn't available anywhere (I was near at one place who had had it but the tape had gone into pieces). Again, many years later, -26 exactly since its original release- I finally find it, and start watching it with very different eyes: those that 26 years add to your life experience. At first, the first 1/2 hour, the film looks somewhat vulgar and filled with apparently unnecessary details of the main character, but then it starts to raise and raise (which is a unique quality of good films), with very good and unexpected twists. All in all, this is a very good movie and in case you have it at hand, don't miss it. I also found "El Crack 2", a kind of sequel made 2 years later, which I had never seen before. It's not so good as the first part, but it's good and worth watching also. I gave the first part an 8 and the sequel a 7.. Flawed..... I know very little about Spanish cinema and even less so about Spanish thrillers, action films etc. So I was very curious about this film, that according to some sources on the internet would something extraordinary.However, I was very disappointed, this film tries very hard to be a film noir/neo noir from Spain but offers very little to the viewer. There are lot of clichés in this film that makes other, more recent Spanish productions in the same genre more appealing.The story about a private detective looking for a missing girl is standard within this genre, or the sleuth genre but would have hoped that screenwriter or the director would have tried to create at least some tension or plotwist that would surprise the viewer.But not so here, here we get same story/clichés stuffed down our throats again. Areta is former police officer, a bit of loner, he is a good man surrounded by bad people in a corrupt world.This and the fact that the script is flawed, contains loopholes, makes me wonder if I have seen a very heavily edited film and that an uncut version is out there somewhere? One positive thing about this film is Alfredo Landas powerful performance in the main lead. I only wish he had a better script to work with.Technically the film is lacking, almost bland in it's cinematography, looking like a cheaply made TV production from the 80's.Future viewers should watch this film because of its position as an obscure film that has gained very little attention here on IMDb. Just don't expect too much.Viewers should rather watch La caja 507 (2002), El Lobo (2004) if they want to see better crime thrillers from Spain.. El crack dos. A sequel based on the success of the first film in Spain, done by the same set of actors and Garci directing it was released years later. It did not had the same public success, but the Madrid atmosphere, exteriors, locations and music are another of Mr.Garci's masterpieces. German Areta, private eye, is in charge of another crime, at the request of his former director, that looks a very simple crime. But the investigation gets important sideline consequences involving complications to the crime. The "colateral" damages might prove...too much... For the private eye to continue his work but Garci as the old boxer story recalled by Areta in a moment of the film, lead us into the Madrid's Christmas nigth. Christma's eve drive to a mysterious Madrid mansion....luxury home of a very wealthy man...