I haven’t seen other films by Juan Vicente Córdoba, but if any of them were in the same league as his 2005 drama, “A Golpes” [Eng. Title: By Force], I wouldn’t be surprised. This is about suburban gangs – male and female, trying to raise themselves out of poverty through crime, with an aim to use its proceeds to chase their respective dreams.
I’ll spare you the storyline – let’s say it is a drama centred around five young women – friends, their love lives, their squabbles, and one of the women’s quest for boxing glory. Assorted characters are inserted along the way to propel their story, and everyone’s fate is sorted out quite neatly and predictably towards the end.
I watched this film again, hoping to find something worthwhile to write about for my second review, but apart from the performance of Natalia Verbeke who plays aspiring boxer María ‘Coco’ Gómez, there is very little that could keep me involved in the film, and even the smattering of nudity and sex scenes fail to raise this above mediocrity. This, I’m afraid is one of those rather forgettable films occasionally churned out from Spain.
The Nudity: Daniel Guzmán, Juana Acosta, María Reyes Arias, and others
There is both male and female frontal nudity in this film.
Fisticuffs from Natalia Verbeke, and nudity from Daniel Guzmán, Juana Acosta, Bárbara Pérez de Lema, Susana Martin, and María Reyes Arias abound in the Spanish drama, “A Golpes”.
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