Amigo is a fine film that should have gotten more traction at the box office. Its fictional portrayal of real historical events was a little too much, I think, for the average movie-goer in 2010, when it was released and when the Iraqi War in the Middle East was raging.
At the turn of the last century, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States as a result of the Spanish-American War. This movie shows what the concession looked like on an everyday level. Spanish occupation of the Philippines had not been without incident, but the Spanish rule had been more geared to letting the local populations retain some element of self-rule. Self-rule went out the window when the Americans took over, symbolized by the conflict of the upper echelon office convincingly played by Chris Cooper, and everyone else.
Amigo has high production values, depicting fully formed, full dimensional characters. Some of the characters really stand out. Prominent is the priest, played by Yul Vasquez. The extent to which this character deliberately misinterprets whatever is being said by the local population which he secretly holds in such contempt to the Americans is truly breath-taking. It goes over the top at times, but not by much. The Filipino community is seen to be very close-knit but with volatile characters. The American foot soldiers are shown as young, inexperienced, uneducated rookies from the sticks, their lieutenant as a conflicted army officer trying to achieve a balance between American objectives and letting the local population rule themselves, and the commanding officer a hardened scrapper. Amigo shows the many many ways in which an invasion between two very different cultures can go wrong.
As far as I can tell Amigo has never been released on DVD, which is really too bad. It is a fine film which deserves to be seen.
