Chile Can Do It (2008)

Overrated

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Ckeck the specialized critic about this movie on the Youtube channel "QLS reviews" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6qpny6wn2MThe film is an apology to The Chaos Theory and how this can lead to the success of a cosmic feat by a Third World country.With extraordinary performances by actors Boris Cuercha and Javiera Contador, the film is overwhelmed by the wide array of special effects and the incorporation of action-drama elements that take the viewer to a visual feast worth seeing.Special mention the performance of Willy Semler who with his chameleon interpretation as director of space flight manages to delve into the depths of the character's psychic characteristics.

I didn't recognize anyone in this film, except for the girlfriend of the girlfriend, who was excellent in another HBO offering from Chile, "The Maid," but it was so well-cast and had so much heart it really didn't matter.What a treat to get to visit the Andes nation's Atacama Desert, reputed to be the driest place on Earth and one of the locales most like Mars that we're ever likely to see. The main storyline here is intriguing: An idealistic schoolteacher is hustled into space, in such a rush, it seems, that there is no time for training -- just so Chile can claim to have launched the first Latin-American astronaut. Then the folks who sent the poor sap up can't afford to bring him down and he whiles away his dazzling orbits of earth despairing of ever seeing his girlfriend again.The supporting cast in this film is excellent -- particularly the hotheaded director of ground control, his more stable chief engineer, and a leprechaun-like Russian émigré they bring in for a little desperately needed technical support. The movie strives a little too hard for laughs at times, and there is a superfluous tangent involving snipers bumbling around the desert, but these flaws are forgivable given the richness of the rest of the film. "Chile Puede" ends on a satisfyingly romantic note. Indeed, Chile apparently CAN do it!

Unlike the previous movie written by Boris Quercia, that is, "The King of A**holes", this one lacks depth and the humanity and charming sense of humor that watermarked his 2006 effort.At the beginning, the film cuts right to the chase: In a third-world country with no space agency and almost no space experience, a Spanish language teacher is launched in a spacecraft - that lacks security measures and has little-to-none oxygen. He won the "honor" of being Chile's first astronaut... at a TV-show.Also, the entire mission control crew departs at the first scene.Is a great premise. But, instead of taking advantage of it, the movie revolves endlessly around the astronaut's girlfriend quest for the launching site. Sure some gags appear, but they're mostly a cavalcade of clichés. The USA counterpart of the Chilean mission control, instead of evolving into clever irony, is just campy at its best.On and on, "Chile Puede" was a brilliant opportunity of making a really smart comedy, sadly lost into boring, old and worn-out gags.