6/10
First adventure in Torrente series starred by a racist , rude , despicable and drunken detective
13 April 2015
First entry in ¨Torrente series¨ starred by the most grotesque detective and well played by Santiago Segura, he is a real private dick , a poster child for police corruption . Featuring politically incorrect private detective Torrente (Santiago Segura) , he is a macho man , lazy , rude , drunkard , Athletic fan , caring only about protecting and serving himself , here he fights against the oriental mafia in Madrid and patrolling the city looking for delinquents . Despite that, he still manages to get the job done . Torrente follows the exploits of Jose Luis Torrente , a Bad Santa of the police force , a peculiar and fatty man , being a ¨El Fari¨ fan . Torrente was rejected from police duty and he has returned to private investigation . He lives in a rotten flat with his wheelchair-bound daddy (Tony Leblanc) , whom he treats quite badly and wipes out of the money he had gained in begging . One day, in his decrepit slum appears a new family of neighbours move in , and the gorgeous young , Amparito (Neus Asensi) , catches his eye . Cheesy Torrente becomes a good friend Rafi (Javier Camera) , to get closer to her . Rafi is a naive young who loves action movies , guns and imitates Robert De Niro's Taxi driver . Later on , the botcher dirty private eye , being helped by Rafi, her nerdy neighbour and a group of geeks , all of them attempt to detain the local Mafia . In one of his cases he discovers the illegalities and irregularities of a powerful drug lord (Espartaco Santoni) and gets involved in the middle of a nasty's plot to introduce lots of drug in the city . As we find our anti-hero in a delicate situation but he can count on to help him some people , as Rafi and his equally geek friends ; one of them results to be a Karate man , Bruce Lee/Mark Dacascos enthusiast , using Shuriken and other Ninja weapons .

This is 1º installment in Torrente series . These films are made to entertain , and this movie , especially for a good time and a nice entertainment . "Torrente" is a passable and unapologetic dark comedy with great special effects , it has several funny and hilarious scenes and quite successful action scenes with persecution , car crashes and many other things . The picture contains thrills , noisy action , tongue-in-cheek , grotesque situations and above all , humor . Although there are also nudism , bad-mouthed language , bad taste jokes and profanities . Torrente 2 is written, directed, produced and stars Segura, whose production house Amiguetes Entertainment produced the film , UIP holds Spanish distribution rights . The screenplay is absurd as well as crazy , just what makes laugh a lot , that the character "Torrente" a very slutty , clumsy , sexist , Machista , extreme-right-wing , on a real person is despicable , being not adequate , but this is a film that satirizes all this and that just means he's a pathetic character , though he also has his unsettling charms . Here Torrente discovers that a band of drug traffickers are operating in a nearby Chinese restaurant and along the way , he falls in love for sexy Neus Asensi . This first Torrente, which set box office records in its day, took $707,000 and Torrente 2 grossed more than €22 million in 2001 . The film contains many cameos of famous people, familiar faces such as Javier Bardem , Carlos Bardem , Chus Lampreave , Tony Leblanc , Antonio De La Torre , Luis Manquiña , Espartaco Santoni , El Gran Wyoming , Daniel Monzón , Mariola Fuentes , Pablo Carbonell , Manuel Tafalle , Luis Cuenca ,among others . The cameos are very amusing and fun and there are lots of laughters and jokes . The movie contains a colorful and adequate cinematography by Carles Gusi . Thrilling as well as appropriate musical score by Roque Baños . Santiago Segura dares to make films with total entertainment and bemusement . And "Torrente " is pure eschatological fun , it is 90 and some minutes of fun and laughters . It is a commendable effort by Santiago Segura to make a film like this . Few directors are able to achieve results as ¨Torrente¨ , the biggest box-office in Spain until ¨8 Apellidos Vascos¨. This film will not disappoint Santiago Segura fans.

The first outing was this ¨Torrente El Brazo Tonto De La Ley¨ , being followed by "Torrente 2: Mission in Marbella", with Juanito Navarro , Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez , Paloma Cela , Santi Millan , Jose Mota , Pablo Carbonel ,among others ; ¨Torrente 3 El Protector¨ in which the horrendous Spanish detective becomes a bodyguard , being performed by José Mota , Javier Gutiérrez , Carlos Latre , Yvonne Sciò , Eduardo García , Fabio Testi ; ¨Torrente 4 Lethal crisis¨ with Carlos Areces , Kiko Rivera , Javier Gutiérrez , Fernando Esteso and ¨Torrente V: Misión Eurovegas¨ with Alec Baldwin , Anna Simon ,Neus Asensi , Pablo Motos , Chus Lampreave ,Andrés Pajares . The movies were written by, directed by and starred popular Spanish comedian-director Santiago Segura and is getting the remake treatment from New Line Cinema ; all of them were produced by Andres Vicente Gomez, who exec produced the Academy Award-winning Belle Epoque
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