Bad Day to Go Fishing

I've been a fan of the Film Movement library of indie and foreign movies releases some time now, and when I saw this one recently, I had to pick it up. I didn't know much, ok, nothing, about the movie beforehand, and that's fine, I'd like to be surprised (good or bad).

"Bad Day to Go Fishing" (107 min; originally released in 2010) is a great "little" film out of Uruguay, of all places. It brings the story of small-time hustler/impresario Prince Orsini who travels around small cities with his "world champion" wrestler Jacob Van Oppen to stage the fighter training, and eventually meeting a challenger who stands to win $1000 if he can stay with Van Oppen for 3 minutes in the ring. The movie opens beautifully with a chaotic scene, and one of the fighters badly hurt (we won't know who). After the opening credits, the movie settles in Santa Maria, a remote town where Orsini and Van Oppen arrive for their next "kill". But soon things become more complicated as it turns out that the eventual challenger may in fact be a super-fighter himself. I don't want to say much more about the story line, you'll just have to see it for yourself, and I promise you, you will want to, and you won't be disappointed.

The acting is all-around top-notch. Gary Pliwe, who plays the Orsini character, reminded me of Robert de Niro/Harvey Keitel 30 years ago, and is just superb. Kudos as well to the writing and directing of this movie. One of the best I've seen recently, and yet another reason why I keep looking forward to more Film Movement releases. Highly recommended

(special thanks to Film Movement for sending me a screener!)

Bad Day to Go Fishing has nothing to do with fishing. Let's get that out of the way now, because it came as something of a surprise to me. Rather it's a story about a con artist, wrestling and hope in a small Uruguayan town.

The film stars Gary Piquer as Prince Orisi, a man who claims to be from Italian nobility. How this squares with him traveling on a bus around South America is something he hopes no one asks. In his company is Jacob, Jouko Ahola, a former professional wrestler who has recently fallen on hard times. Together they travel around offering people the chance to wrestle against Jacob. Anyone who lasts three minutes gets $1000. That the matches are staged comes as no surprise.

When they arrive in the small town of Santa Maria, Orisi contacts a strongman type and offers him money to be in the fight and lose. The man agrees, then gets arrested for drunken and disorderly behavior. This leaves Orisi without competition for Jacob. Up steps a young woman whose husband, known as the Turk and famed for cutting off a man's ears, is willing to wrestle. His wife is seriously interested in the money, and the fact that Orisi doesn't actually have it is something of a complication in his life. Add to that the fact that his wrestler seems to be cracking up and it sounds like life is about to become very interesting for Orisi.

I've seen at least one person say this is like The Wrestler if it were directed by the Coen brothers, and I can absolutely see that. It's got their visual style in spades, and characters that would not be out of place in one of their movies. It's a wonderful film to look at, beautifully written and nicely paced. It's an incredibly good film and one that I highly recommend!

The title, "Bad Day to Go Fishing" is a fishing metaphor for a con man who is a wrestling promoter fishing out to scam towns during his wrestling exhibitions. Orsini travels with ex-world champion, the strongest man, Jacob van Oppen and offers any man who can stand in the ring more than 3 minutes wins a $1,000. And, he fishes around for the perfect opponent who he can pay off to take a dive within the first 20 seconds.

The "fishing" expedition proves out to be a fishing prize he didn't expect!

The strongest man, Jacob is a simple man, longing for some normalcy instead of touring and wrestling and he is also aging and sickly. But he carries amazing strength.

The two land in Santa Maria in Uruguay, and seek out the usual wrestling partner for Jacob, pay him to lose to Jacob. Unfortunately, that plan foils before it gets played. A young woman, Adrianna, about to be married and in need of cash for the marriage, offers her fiancé, known as the Turk to challenge Jacob the strongest man.

After the original plan is foiled, manager Orsini promotes the event, displays the wrestler, stages preliminary showings, charging a fee, all to work up to the great event. He learns quickly that his plan takes a twist and turn. In reality, he exudes a lack of confidence in his ex-world champion. Orsini also lacks the money to put up for the prize. Everything is turning inside out.

This is a really well-done film, great pacing, very good acting that clearly portrays the many moods that drive the film. The storyline moves with intriguing interest, never a dull moment, everything needed to advance the viewer to follow the twists and turns revealed.

Subtitles are large and clear, however, the two main characters speak English often, and it may be difficult to understand them; they seem to mumble.

What makes this captivating is the ending of the movie becomes the dramatic opening scene, but without revealing the ending! Pay close attention, there is so much to grab hold of, to follow along to fully understand the con man, the fighter, the townspeople....

This film joins the ranks of the growing Film Movement collections. Film Movement is a distributor of award-winning independent and foreign film. See it! Rizzo