KnotMissPriceless
Why so much hype?
Listonixio
Fresh and Exciting
SanEat
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
Kirpianuscus
a minimalistic film. a simple story. a dark moment. and the fall of an universe. all in right doses. all convincing, dramatic and impressive. the only problem - the generosity of theme who reduced Heli as a moral manifesto. after the lost of Estela, the rhythm seems be reduced for analysis of trauma. the key moment is only shadow for torture and corruption of police and the search of sense of young family. a story who seems be coherent becomes a sort of improvisation. the image is surrogate for acting. each scene from the last part seems be fight for invent purpose of the first part. a good film, off course. for message. for the bitter taste. for drama. for exploration of crisis. but far to be great.
Martin Bradley
Amat Escalante won the Best Director prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and it's easy to see why. "Heli" is an absolutely brilliant and utterly uncompromising study of crime and poverty filmed with a documentary-like precision that makes its scenes of violence virtually unwatchable, (including a scene where a boy's genitals are set on fire). At its core are several extraordinary performances by a young cast who inhabit their roles so completely it's impossible to tell where the actor ends and the character begins. Heli is an 'outlaw' not in any criminal sense, (he is totally innocent), but in the sense that he exists outside the fringes of society and is sucked into a criminal underworld by circumstances totally outside his control, (his young sister's boyfriend has hidden drugs stolen from a drugs cartel inside Heli's home). This is humanist cinema but set in a place almost devoid of humanity. It's frightening, bleak and deeply disturbing but also essential viewing. A masterpiece
FilmCriticLalitRao
Heli directed by Amat Escalante-a Mexican director,is gripping from the start.The first few minutes show a young albeit bulky boy being mercilessly hanged from a bridge.It is only in the later half that the same bridge makes it re-entry and events are explained.Heli avoids many clichés with which viewers have accustomed themselves.This film does not give any idle space to a serious viewer as whatever that is happening on the screen has direct bearing on film's protagonists' to progress in life.One should also note that two probable reasons explain why 'Heli' was an immense hit during 66th Cannes International Film Festival 2013.Its success owes a lot to its choice of location as well as its shock effects.One gets to see remote parts of Mexico where not much choice is offered to anybody who wishes to make sense of everything around.Although it does not talk explicitly,role of sex and violence in Mexican society is also discussed in this film.For example: pornographic violence featured in the film is not easy to watch but one cannot also have other methods of dealing with violence in contemporary Mexico.Lastly,it is the episodic nature of different events in the life of a young man which makes an attempt to make screenplay as coherent as possible.However,it is just a mystery why these episodes are unable to make a coherent whole of this film ? It is this weakness which would irk many viewers.
Michael Chase
Hard to know what to make of this film. It is very well acted and beautifully shot: every moment is completely believable. But it is also profoundly depressing. Heli, a young father and factory worker, and his 12-year-old sister are caught up in a ferocious explosion of violence when the sister's boyfriend, a young soldier, tries to steal some drugs. The theft is soon uncovered, and Heli and the boyfriend are subjected to some of the most brutal torture ever depicted on the screen. The plight of these young people is pretty well hopeless, since it's almost impossible to tell the difference between drug dealers, police and soldiers: even minding one's own business is not enough to protect ordinary people from being destroyed. The movie is, therefore, ultimately shocking and dispiriting, and one assumes this was Escalante's intention: to testify, unflinchingly, to the horrors of Mexico's drug war. But the brutality of the torture scenes comes close to being complacent: worst of all is that young children witness and participate in them as if such mutilation and killing was as normal as a game of sandlot baseball. One comes away with very little hope for Mexico's future, and with nagging questions about the relations between violence and art. Is the depiction of casual, merciless cruelty ever really justified?
