Cinema
Johnny 100 Pesos
Johnny cien pesos
Gustavo Graef-Marino · 1993
Synopsis
Santiago, seven months after the return of democracy. Johnny García, a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, acts as lookout for four criminals who want to rob a video store in the city centre, a front for an illegal currency exchange. The police arrive, the gang takes employees and customers hostage, and the stand-off becomes a national event broadcast live, into which the government itself is drawn. The robbers first demand a plane to Cuba, according to the Sundance festival; Gloria, the owner's secretary, tries to seduce Johnny.
Context
The film is inspired by the first known hostage-taking in Chile, on 10 October 1990, in a building on calle Estado in Santiago; the AFI compares it to Dog Day Afternoon, except that a government is directly involved in it. Shown in 1993 at the Stockholm, Toronto and New York festivals, and released in cinemas in the United States, it was Chile's entry for the Oscar for foreign film and appeared in 1994 at the Sundance festival.
Who it is for
A genre film of an hour and a half, tense and dry; distributed in English under the title Johnny 100 Pesos.
Prizes and reception
One of the first thrillers to come from Latin America, according to Sundance, shown in Toronto as well as in New York.
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