CARANCHO

Directed by Pablo Trapero. Starring Ricardo Darin, Martina Gusmán Club, QFT, Belfast; IFI, Dublin, 107 min

Pablo Trapero’s storming Carancho concerns itself with the sordid business of ambulance-chasing lawyers on the streets of Buenos Aires. Who knew social realism could tear around at such breakneck speeds?

Ricardo Darin, Argentina’s busiest actor, plays Sosa, a smooth attorney who turns up suspiciously rapidly after serious road traffic accidents. (“Carancho” refers to a type of carrion-hungry vulture.)

At just such an incident, Sosa meets Lujan (Martina Gusmán), an overworked and virtuous doctor, and the two begin a passionate, slightly uncomfortable affair. Lujan’s tireless devotion to others seems to promise a kind of salvation, but much of the her Zen can be attributed to a secret morphine addiction.

Initially, Sosa seems like an amiable rogue, working hard to recover his legal licence after an earlier, obscure offense. But, as the film progresses, the full nature of his compromised state begins to emerge. He appears to be involved in actively staging accidents rather than just mopping up fees in the bloody aftermath.

Eventually, apparently discovering a conscience, Sosa attempts to stand up for downtrodden clients. Former associates are not best pleased. Violence looms.

This exhilarating exotic thriller swoops into our cinemas almost two years after the film’s Cannes premiere. It’s a baffling delay for a movie jollied along by the same populist subtitled spirit as Tell No One and those Danish TV crossovers.

It’s the new international film grammar. Carancho is a clever enough to thrash out ethical concerns and expose a shadow economy of insurance payouts and legal loopholes without sacrificing its sleek genre appeal.

It helps, too, that Darin and Gusmán (the peerless star of Trapero’s earlier Lion’s Den) provide a masterclass in unlikely onscreen chemistry. TARA BRADY