User reviews

Surely Portuguese cinema is not as bad as the Portuguese people who write on the blogs and on the press make it seem, however today i will not talk about a good film, instead i will talk about a abomination called "Corrupção", this movie directed by João Botelho is the film adaptation of the book "Eu Carolina" by Carolina Salgado, the woman who for many years was the companion of the president of FC Porto.

This movie failed on so many levels, the performances are very poor, specially Margarida Vila Nova who portrays Carolina ... or better Sofia since the producers didn't have the "testicles" to produce this movie with the characters real names (I guess we all know why), Margarida's Oporto accent is very inconsistent and sounds more like a spoof of the accent than the actual accent but still the worst part for me is not the accent, which is very difficult to do for someone from another region of Portugal, but more her performance which is very theatrical and so lacks realism, nothing she spoke sounded convincing.

Apart from her, Nicolau Breyner, one of the best Portuguese actors is also very poor as Pinto da Costa, the physical similarities are there, but that's it... He even didn't do the accent and used the F word every 5 minutes or so.

António Pedro Cerdeira was actually the only good actor in all this mess of a movie.

Well when it come to the history or lack of it it's also very weak and full of plot holes, such as Sofia that is described in the book and film as someone who works in a prostitution bar and on a supermarket, but we do not see a single scene of her working at the supermarket, being Carolina or Sofia whatever she is doing "her job" what we do not not see her in a room or in intimate moments with the other customers, strange, very strange, FC Porto is not even mentioned neither the club nor it's rivals, nor is there a single scene shot on a soccer field and talking about the soccer field there are also the referees who are the most random characters in this movie, they look more like models and not like referees at all, they are way too "good-looking".

The editing of the film is also very bad, there are mundane scenes that drag on for several minutes and others more interesting that only last a few seconds.

As a final note and impartially i tell you that "corrupção" is one of the worst examples of Portuguese cinema, a film that looks like a caricature and not something serious, I do not recommend it, totally unnecessary film, everything that happens in this movie is simply implausible.

The corruption certainly exists in soccer but deserves to be treated in a more serious and realistic way, and not as poor as shown on this film.

My vote is 3.

Title (Portugal) - "Corrupção" ("Corruption")

This movie is so bad! The story is sad and ridiculous, but I thought the film would be better, technically speaking… The production is bad, the plot line is bad, the soundtrack is horrible…maybe because it followed, more than it probably should, the book where it is based… The only thing I liked was the performance of Margarida Vila-Nova! She proved she's an excellent actress, even when she has to do bad characters… All the rest was pure trash! Even the Nicolau Breyner's performance was not as good as expected (and he's an actor that I admire so much for his entire career).

Definitely it's even worse than one could ever imagine! I just don't score it 0/10 because I can't!

I want the hour and a half of my life back. Bad bad movie.

The main character did not look convincing at all, what a bad performance.

Also the story as many holes. A night woman working on a "girls" bar and has to seduce clients but never have sex with them even tough we are lead to believe all her co-workers do? Come on. We want to believe in the character, not personify someone as a "angel" whose she's not.

The parrot in the movie is only used to instigate hate against Nicolau Breyner's character.

The violation scene at the pool has no connection with the rest of the movie whatsoever.

And a lot of many plot holes and story failures i don't have the patience to describe.

Also the monster publicity campaign of the movie lead me to believe it was based on real facts. People in general did. Even the people related to the film promoted that idea. Well, someone who believes in a story like that can only be an idiot.

I gave it a 2 out of 10 just because of some few moments of average acting performance of António Cerdeira and Nicolau Breyner.

Don't waste your time on this.

Irony has often strange ways to show and give meaning even to a terrible and dishonest film like this one.

The story is that the former lover of the president of a football team (FC.Porto) becomes estranged from him and decides to write a book denouncing alleged sports corruption and gangster type behaviour from that president's administration during the years she was with him. In a country like Portugal where maybe more than half the football fans support the opponent, usually loosing football club (Benfica), this had the potential to sell (books, film tickets, whatever...). The former lover teams up with a ghost-writer who's also a sport's journalist who passionately supports Benfica. The book comes out and they decide in the meanwhile to make a movie based on it. Depending on who you ask the purposes are threefold: money and revenge for the former lover, trying to invert to stop the winning streak of FC.Porto (the writer) and money (the producer who came along).

Caught in the middle of this is Botelho, married to the ghost-writer. He is a relatively talentless director, but he usually tries to make real cinema. But the combination here was to explosive for him, he was too much outside his element. So in the end he (and his writer wife) become estranged from the producer and neglect the film. Apparently the director alleges some difference of opinion regarding soundtrack (he wanted classical and jazz, the producer wanted contemporary pop).

Anyway, what i got to watch, streamed and forgotten in youtube, is a total mess: Botelho uses the Oliveira blocking (static shots, people facing the camera while having a dialogue etc.) to tell a sleazy story and that isn't even good sleaze. The sexy scenes are not sexy enough, nor even good exploitation, the dialogue is mediocre and so on. But mostly the film is dishonest. A number of characters are bad, very bad, the others are good very good. Everybody (even Breyner) is absolutely lost in this mess. The idea print an idea in people's heads (the president is bad and corrupt that's why his team wins, all the other people are good). They even change the origin of the woman (from Brazilian to Porto accent Portuguese) to avoid the predictable prejudice the Portuguese average viewer might have towards Brazilians. And the final dishonesty is a scene when Sofia is meeting her book editor: behind her are a number of photos of famous Portuguese writers and in a certain shot you get her head in medium close up mimicking the head of Florbela Espanca, seen in the background. For a director who prides himself to adapt to the screen the biggest writers in Portugal (Pessoa, Queirós, Mendes Pinto) to establish a comparison between a writer revealing some sleaze in a book to one of our greatest woman writers must have been heart-breaking. Oh love forces you to some terrible moves sometimes. No wonder he took the music cue and left the project.

I looked for this film because now, 10 years later, we have the courts and police investigating Benfica for corruption, justice officials and police bribing and so on. I wonder what film will these people do... Funny. The irony...

I really enjoyed this movie because I think it surely represent the reality in sports corruption not only in Portugal, but in the world as well. The movie portrays Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa life and career, all the schemes and corruptions behind the "stage". Since Pinto da Costa had become Futebol Clube do Porto President, the club turned out to be one of the most successful and well known club in European panorama. But, what should been a really hard and good management work has turned out to be a lie. A really big lie that has last for decades (30 years to be precise). Despite the fact, the movie lack of production investment, it shows all the facts and history behind the club success, based on a book written by Carolina Salgado, Pinto da Costa ex-wife, where she tells all the details behind Pinto da Costa management throughout it's presidency.