Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

rooprect Eldorado starts out as a quirky, low key comedy along the lines of Jim Jarmusch (Night on Earth, Down by Law). Perhaps slow and uneventful by some people's tastes, but pretty humorous if you let the absurdity soak in. The story is about a couple of unlikely travel buddies who embark on a cross-Belgian roadtrip, alternately showcasing the gorgeous countryside and the bizarre characters they encounter.But as you can guess by my title, for me and I believe for most American audiences, the film was upstaged by an unsettling sideplot about a dog being brutally killed. After watching the movie, I immediately googled the director trying to figure out why he would include this terrible juxtaposition in an otherwise playful film. You're not going to like what I learned.According to an interview, this director's hallmark is to use a dog in his films. In this case he decided to use a dead dog. It was not intended as a major plot point but merely to express the contradictions in humans. In the scene, one character says and does something absolutely vile, but (as the director says in the interview) we are supposed to excuse him because he later shows that he is just human because he had a dog once.Um. No. Perhaps blame it on a trans-Atlantic difference in how we love our dogs, but most civilized Americans will not, under any circumstances, excuse or condone the idea of a dog being tied up, thrown over a bridge, and left to die whimpering.That's what my title refers to. Immediately I was so sickened by that scene and the characters' blasé reactions, that I lost all respect and empathy for the lot of them. Ultimately, after watching an 85 minute film, I was left wondering why I should care about anyone in the story. Of course this was not the director's intent; I suppose we were supposed to take the jarring scene more in stride. If you're a dog lover, or even a casual fan of animals, I guarantee you'll be very put off by the unnecessary brutality of that scene. I sure hope they didn't use a real dog (though it looked like they did).

Pascal Zinken (LazySod) A guy lives on his own in a somewhat rundown house. When he gets home one evening he finds an intruder in the house: a junkie that is trying to steal some of his belongings. After some initial anger the two of them become a very odd pair and they start making a road trip through Belgium with the two of them.Running as a somewhat dark comedy this one is a good laugh. The pair is impossible enough to make for some very funny events and the pace of the film is high enough. Some things that happen don't make much sense at all but it never gets to the point where it becomes an irritation. With each passing mile the link between the two becomes stronger even though it is very clear that they will never be real good friends. The film is a tiny bit predictable but that doesn't work against it. It could have been stretched a bit longer though without turning less intense, which would have given some space to build on the characters a bit more.7 out of 10 stolen moments

ledryno2000 The main characters come together because of dogs and eventually separate because of a dog. That fact is slightly more uninteresting than most of what happens in between.There were a few exceptions - when our two heroes first meet, when they twice receive car assistance and when they're at the parents' house. Some of the landscape shots were nice to look at too.Character development was MINIMAL. Yvan is mild-tempered, deals in imported, used American cars and is, judging by the casual orderliness of his home and personal appearance, a bachelor and probably not dating. Elie/Didier is a junkie-liar-thief who has no money, no drugs, no car and wants to travel to his parent's home. It takes about two thirds of the movie before you discover the relationship each has with their respective families and how it might explain why Yvan befriended Elie/Didier. What is never explained is why Yvan wants to believe the best about Elie/Didier in spite of what he sees. Ultimately, there wasn't enough there for me to take an interest in either character.This wasn't a terrible movie but once was enough. This movie is MAYBE a 5 but I think closer to a 4.

alanf999 I could call the movie a disappointment except that after about 20 minutes I didn't have high hopes for it. I could see that it was following the basic arc of "Midnight Cowboy" or "Central Station": one lonely, marginalized character tries to take advantage of another, then they end up forced to depend on each other on a quixotic quest through a desolate landscape toward an illusory goal of warmth and safety. But "Midnight Cowboy" was a great film, and "Central Station" was worthwhile. There is almost nothing of lasting interest in this movie either inside or outside the two characters. (The scenes at Didier's parents' house are an exception.) There are not only one, but two conversations that are literally of the "Yes. No. Yes. No" form, which are not particularly amusing, suggesting instead that the writer had nothing much to say. The random wackiness that he occasionally attempts to pump into the action is a poor substitute because there is no follow-through. Yvan gets his hair taped to the ceiling of his car to keep himself awake, but later he crashes, without any even cursory shot to show us whether the tape gave way, his hair was pulled out, or he fell asleep still attached to that ceiling. And though the car goes off the road and drives through trees, it reveals itself as magically unharmed when a nudist appears from nowhere to tow it and give them directions, then disappears from the action. A dog is dropped from a bridge, crushing the roof of a car, but the ceiling is intact when we see it immediately thereafter.This lack of consistency and consequence compromises the character development that is supposed to occur as well. Yvan, who is supposed to be demonstrating a growing feeling of responsibility to assuage his guilt for not being present for his family in the past, abandons his plan to take the suffering dog to a veterinarian. (Why? How expensive could it be to have a dog put to sleep by even a private vet, let alone a shelter, and has Yvan ever shied away from expense in the past?) Instead, he indulges Elie/Didier in his plan to ostensibly buy heroin to euthanize the dog, though he suspects correctly that the money will not go to that end. In the meantime, the dog whimpers, uncomforted and unseen, in the back of the car, until it finally dies. That, thankfully, is also the point at which the movie expires.