Movie review: Private Tropical 34 "Caribbean Sea Conspiracy" (2007) (Lauryn Way, Carla Box, Ellen Haint, Tarra Wait, Cindy Collar)
A sharp sepia tone in the opening sequence indicates that we are witnessing an event from the past. It is a flashback seasoned with music worthy of Ocean's Eleven that takes place in a cozy Antillean-style chalet located in Guadeloupe. This tonality is accurate to such an extent that we even unconsciously relate it to the humid heat of certain tropical latitudes. An airy middle-aged man, wearing a Panama hat and a Davidoff cigar, sits in a soft hammock next to a pool as calm as a plate of cold soup. Something horrible is about to happen...
Private Tropical 34 Caribbean Sea Conspiracy trailer
1st part of the movie on Youtube
2nd part of the movie on Youtube
"Smooth" but criminal
Moments later, a man dressed in black enters the scene wearing dark sunglasses, opaque like those worn by the blind or those who want to hide a look intoxicated by a night of alkaloids and synthetic stimulants.
Mobster by day, techno-progressive DJ by night
Important to put sunscreen on the bald area
The newcomer carries a huge black bag with him. Brief presentations precede a very brief negotiation and an unquestionable exchange. It is obvious that everything had already been agreed beforehand and that this meeting is a mere formality.
In said talk we are shown a dossier, and a pre-agreement of remuneration in installments is mentioned. Money is also put on the table, money wrapped in plastic, the modus operandi of the drug cartels of the 90s, when cryptocurrencies and Coinbase did not yet exist.
¿Dossier or PDF newsletter?
Cove money
With no time to breathe, a Beretta captures all our attention and tears apart the prevailing peace... The man in black points his gun; a shot is heard: the meeting is over. We already have all the necessary ingredients for a mafia thriller and blood crimes.
No way out...
¿A perfect place to die?
After this shock and without immediate responses, a phlegmatic voice-over explains to the audience that this circumstance was one of those delicate moments that sometimes occur in a man's life. A sensation of total uncertainty, like when you place a tea cup and saucer, on top of another tea cup and saucer, on top of another tea cup and saucer, and so on... A crucial moment in which that porcelain tower it could fall in any direction and change everything. This is explained graphically and with great dynamism in El vicio del poder, by the filmmaker Adam McKay.
Tea cup and saucer, with Chrstian Bale
Before closing this initial scene, it should be clarified that this villa is currently available for vacation rental. It could even be said that the business is sustained mainly by the rental of Caribbean Sea Conspiracy fans.
Today it has a yellow awning instead of blue.
The pool is still exactly the same as it was on the 2007 shoot.
The villa in Google Maps
In this tropical film, director Max Bellocchio plays with time like Quentin Tarantino or Christopher Nolan and, after this brutal opening scene, he chooses to rewind to the beginning of the gangster story that led to this delicate situation that has closed, for the moment, without definitive outcome. So, the turn has come to meet Hans Stoller, who appears on the beach sitting next to his girlfriend, Angélica.
Short summer love...
Angélica is hopelessly in love with him, but he considers her as important as the magazine you read in your dentist's waiting room. The scoundrel Hans is not a one-woman man, and has several mistresses, including Diana, a Czech bombshell, and also the reserved Valeria Nats.
Diana is the woman who makes him happy
With Diana and Valeria at the same time, the man is even happier
In the preceding image, Hans, Diana and Valeria Nats relax on a catamaran Catana 581, owned by the male. Both Pleiades tan under the Caribbean sun and then Hans interrupts the silence to talk about base metal, the scarce factor and resource that moves the world.
Hans, based on the complicity that reigns in this love triangle, confesses his plan to both of them, making them part of a conspiracy. Diana nods in agreement, Valeria Nats isn't even that.
Logo of Royal hotel
He tells them that, according to his information, a certain powerful man is going to spend the afternoon in the piano suite of the Royal Hotel in Naples with his lover. At that appointment, this wealthy man is going to come with a briefcase containing two million dollars and a dossier that compiles evidence of his father's criminal activities.
Starched collar but unshaven beard
A bodyguard who looks like a rundown Mario Conde hangs out at the door of the suite. The animal prints and the strident reddish colors of the rooms of this supposed five-star hotel are worthy of an Italian nightclub...
Hans, very cautious, does not act alone. Santo Puccini accompanies him. Both executioners disguise themselves as cooks while Piero Gutti, the son of Neapolitan mafia boss Tony Gutti, gives himself up to his lover in sin. The Royal Hotel and the two contract killers could be a clear nod to Pulp Fiction... Let's remember the trivial conversation about a certain hamburger franchise, in which the "Royale" with cheese comes up.
"Cooking" the plan
The last kiss
Latte intero Matese sponsors this scene (bottom left of image).
The gunmen have already finished dressing in their chefs' uniforms and Santo Puccini, very finicky himself, pushes a room service cart to the piano suite. Hans, without so much artifice, makes use of the main elevator.
Room service
With guns, front and behind
In no time, Santo and Hans have the escort surrounded on both flanks. The bodyguard does not take long to give up when two irons with a silencer point at his head.
Cornered
Once inside the suite, Hans and his henchman shoot the couple point-blank without further ado, taking with them Peter's gun, the incriminating dossier, and the briefcase with the money.
No option to talk
Pretty death
Everything for money
Pic of the suite room in hotel Marcantonio
Again in the Caribbean, at the house in Saint Francois, with the briefcase as a centerpiece, Hans tells another member of his organization, Rulo, that he killed Santo Puccini as soon as he left the hotel. Among gamblers there is no compassion or mercy. Hans did not want to share the two million dollars with anyone, least of all with the inept Santo Puccini, who doesn't even know how to play the recorder, despite his family name of musicians.
In this dialogue, Hans himself mentions for the first time a mysterious federal agent who is interested in getting hold of Gutti's dossier (as if it were the NOC List), of which nobody seems to have been able to make simple photocopies. Rulo adds that Diana is already trying to make contact with the aforementioned, and that makes Hans happy to be part of a great gangster team. Valeria Nats, meanwhile, continues with her sepulchral silence.
Counting the money
Hours later, in an unidentified safe house located in Naples, Italy, Sam Stiller (the man in the Panama hat from the opening scene) has a meeting with Tony Gutti, the head honcho of the bell mob. His goons don't mess around and come to the meeting armed with assault rifles and submachine guns.
The guy on the left has conjunctivitis
Tony Gutti shows him the photos of the two hit men who murdered his son and tells him that, although the two million stolen or the death of his playful son are a mere triviality that does not take away his sleep, he does worry about whose hands it falls into. the dossier. Said document must be recovered because it contains sensitive information that could activate an extradition order against him.
Tony Gutti's cruelty is legendary, and in addition to extortion and threats, he is an expert in brace torture, which consists of screwing this sharp tool into the muslam of his victims, until they answer the question. Mr. Gutti does not like to wait: patience is not one of his virtues, and it is possible that having held the power of Mafia boss in Naples since the late 80s is the main reason. The old man has spoiled himself.
Photos taken from the criminals' MySpace
The Gutti's assignment is very simple: Sam Stiller must immediately travel to Marie Galante (Guadeloupe) to find both assassins and apply the law of Talion, killing them with a shot at point-blank range in order to recover the dossier.
Santo Puccini is already, at this point in the film, breeding hollyhocks, but Tony ignores that fact, so he offers a hefty $3 million for both executions.
The candles symbolize a wake, for the blood spilled and the one that will be spilled
Before saying goodbye, the boss Gutti confesses that he would be delighted to fulfill the order himself but that he cannot since it is impossible for him to leave Italy. The transalpine nation has protected him since the Berlusconi regime, despite the fact that it is the vox populi that leads the Neapolitan Camorra with a firm hand. Tony Gutti also adds a very threatening epitaph: "if you carry out the order, I'll pay you 3 million, otherwise I'll kill you." A beastly factum principis, which leaves Sam in a situation of total defenselessness and no choice.
Finally, it is important to explain that the Gutti family has not always been synonymous with crime, but rather had a noble past. The Prince Bishop of Trento made them aristocrats in 1747, and even years later they were decorated with the rank of Knights of the Italian Navy. However, in Bellocchio's turn-of-the-century universe, they are a sinister organized crime family.
Heading to paradise
This particular plane is still in operation today
Having landed in Guadeloupe on a direct flight from Paris, Sam Stiller flies in this Cessna to the islet of Marie Galante. In his pocket, the photo of the criminals; in his heart, dreams and hopes.
Meanwhile, on the neighboring island of Grande Terre, the top ranks of the Antillean mafia meet for a slushie. Diana tells Hans that she has already contacted the federal agent, named Mark, and that she believes he is a solvent and trustworthy man, so she considers that he will have no problem paying the five million they demand as a reward.
Hans urges him to set a meeting for the next day and Rulo comments by proposing a toast. Valeria Nats continues with her silence and, as the saying goes, the one who is silent, gives.
More sparing in words than Mourinho when he loses
In a bar in Marie Galante, Sam Stiller, with the indiscretion that characterizes him, places the two photographs of the mercenaries on the table of the establishment to scrutinize them and draw up a strategy.
He wonders what Santo Puccini, from Ragusa, and Hans Stoller, a German terrorist, are doing there. It's an unusual duo who have crossed the pond to make their fortunes by selectively committing crimes.
"Lookin´at ´em doesn´t change ´em" Rusty Ryan in Ocean´s Eleven.
Just landed, still hasn't changed his shirt, or taken off his aviator sunglasses
Sam is served a Corsaire cold beer and the waitress at the bar, as expected, notices the photos, and, how could it be otherwise, she knows the outlaws. In the Antilles everyone knows each other, as in the towns of Ávila.
What's more, the waitress is Angelica. An ode to the phrase that "work dignifies" because she, the girlfriend of gangster Hans Stoller, works from sunup to sundown for 500 euros serving beers on a terrace, at the mercy of the excesses of her boss's tyrant, enduring compliments from the drunks and looks of the exited.
Corsaire product placement that lasts a fraction of a second
Hans could have refused to let his girlfriend work as a waitress, but as has been made clear before, for Mr. Stoller, Angelica is one of many.
Angelica, shrewd and intuitive, does not reveal to Sam that Hans Stoller is her boyfriend; He chooses to lie to her by explaining that it is a friend's flirt. It is possible that the filmmaker Max Bellocchio has opted for narrative ellipsis here because Angélica also conveys the feeling that the relationship with Hans is over. It wouldn't be surprising because he may have found out about the antlers he wears on his head... Remember: at Marie Galante everyone knows each other.
Sam Stiller also lies by the elbows and asks him for information on the whereabouts of both bigardos, under the pretext of giving him something valuable that he himself has brought from Germany by order of the Stoller family.
After Angelica's evasions, Sam introduces himself and offers to have dinner together. She smiles and accepts... It is a fact that she is already an available bachelorette, but in the film we have not been told. They both agree that Sam will pick her up at the bar at 8pm, when his shift ends. It seems the typical answer to get rid of a slimy but as we will see shortly after the girl is serious.
The shout of the boss, interrupting the procession and telling him that he should go back to work, also suggests that Angelica flirts too much at work and tends to talk to the big men.
Nice to meet you, Dinner tonight?
In parallel, Mark Berti, the federal agent, is meeting with Diana. Behind Hans's back, Diana agrees to a bonus for putting the two in touch. She is a professional commission agent although conformist, because she only asks for $20,000 in exchange for a pack: establishing contact and special service, and it seemed that she was already duped beforehand. A bribe too easy to accept for a needy Mark Berti in every way.
Diana goes to meetings with the entire commercial ammunition available
That night, Sam Stiller is having dinner at Angelica's house. Angelica has cooked for both of them and it is obvious that she is a girl as lovesick as the ones in the James Bond movies. Sam takes advantage of the situation and stubbornly insists that he needs Diana's address (Hans' supposed girlfriend, but actually her lover). She hesitates a bit, but when Sam tells her he's from the FBI, she thinks it's the perfect revenge against her cuckold ex-boyfriend “Mr. lies”. Angelica writes Diana's address on a post it and, in return, asks Sam for a new date.
Romantic and business meeting
The next scene contains a cheeky product placement of Carib Beer. Hans receives a call from Diana, who summons him to have a Meeting with Mark Berti in Plaza Square the next day at 11 in the morning. There they will discuss the fringes of a hypothetical pact.
Rulo and Hans toast again, this time with Carib beer, because everything is going according to plan. Above good and evil; they are partying in one of the fashionable places on the island, without fear of the mob showing up.
Wanted in Europe, unpunished in the Caribbean
The meeting takes place in broad daylight in the middle of a tiny pedestrian square where there is a BMW X5 parked in the middle, of course! There are quite a few disagreements because the positions are at odds. Hans and Mark don't trust each other.
Meanwhile, Sam Stiller overhears the entire conversation from behind the SUV, hidden behind a spreadsheet newspaper, and wearing a cap from the fishing store and sunglasses bought on the beach boulevard.
A little-crowded pedestrian square and a BMW X5 parked in the middle...
(Please check the article The tropical saga cars)
Tropical vs profesional
During the meeting, Sam also learns that Hans is hosting a party at his villa in La Grande Terre and decides to convince Angelica to give her Hans's address, the one at the house in Saint Francois.
It is quite curious that Angélica, Hans's ex-girlfriend, does not even know where her boy lives, but this is very common in organized crime, a world in which no one gives out personal information. A brace moved with art makes the most reliable member “sing”.
Hans, in anticipation that Angelica might spill the beans, had a relationship with her for months, without mentioning exactly where he lived.
Angelica asks Diana “can you PLEASE tell me where my boyfriend lives?”
Party with cocktails with umbrella
In the revelry, while Hans Stoller is hitting on a blonde from the Czech Republic named Marie, Sam Stiller interrupts the courtship with the coolness of a referee.
"What beautiful mischief you wear"
Sam, to no one's surprise, stands there and, to everyone's surprise, introduces himself as an FBI agent. James Bond always did that when he went to the casino run by the villain, so Sam was not going to be less.
Hans remains hieratic, as in a poker game, listening carefully to the spy. Sam claims to be Mark Berti's top command, and informs him that he now takes full control of the operation. Sam conveys some information about the meeting, which he overheard behind the newspaper: that Mark has already seen part of the dossier, the payment terms... All this gives credibility to Sam's version and Hans accepts the change of roles for part of the FBI and urges him to go home when the revelry comes to an end. However, Sam tells him that he will phone him and the time and place of the meeting will be set on that call.
Hans comments that the FBI is always suspicious of everyone, and Sam nods, looking as though he's been ambushed several times in the past.
Criminal with visiting card
Hans gives him his Universal Exports business card, and continues to party. Hans regularly works with all kinds of corrupt policemen, looking for that symbiosis that is so pernicious for society, and his pulse does not tremble on this occasion either.
Days later, Sam contacts Hans and meets him in the afternoon at 4:00 p.m. at the Sunset Bar, next to Laguna Beach. After hanging up, Hans tells Rulo that he doesn't know for sure if Sam is a real federal agent and sends Adela and Isabela to see Mark, with the aim of finding out about Sam Stiller.
A bigger forehead than Bjarne Riis's had to be used to devise good stratagems
Opposite, some delinquent criminals because of money and women
Hans also commissions Rulo to guard the dossier in a cove in the Antillean countryside, because too many people are interested. Rulo, after saying goodbye to Adela and Isabela, is left alone on the back porch of the villa in Saint Francois and is savagely murdered from behind.
Sam was in a nearby street market when she phoned Hans and he's over in a jiffy. Without using the knockers, he jumped over the fence and hit Rulo with the butt, breaking his neck.
A good punch.
Minutes later, Hans calls Adela and warns her not to ask about Sam. Next, Adela passes the mobile to Mark so that they can talk to each other and Hans can give her some precise instructions: Mark must go to his house in Saint Francois. There Sam will be waiting for him, the man to whom he must deliver the money in exchange for the dossier.
“My boss claims you, handsome boy”
The viewer is taken aback by this turn of events, but in the next shot we see Sam pointing his gun at Hans, who can only verbalize Sam's wishes. After hanging up, Hans begs for mercy and assures him that he won't take revenge in the future, but Sam doesn't mince words and executes him on the spot. "Not FBI" is the last thing on Hans's mind besides the 9mm bullet. Anyway, it's understandable that Sam would murder Hans, because who in their right mind would trust a Teutonic terrorist?
The CGI shot is so exaggerated that it looks more like freshly rolled cotton candy.
And now, in a superb exordium, we return to the opening scene, in which Sam receives Mark at the house in Saint Francois. Let's remember that the shot ended just as Mark Berti was taking out his beretta and pointing it at our man in the Panama hat, Sam Stiller.
Remember, if you take off your hat, 50 sun cream
The last steps..
The white dress of purity defeats the black t-shirt of evil
Old dog, Sam hadn't come alone. Angélica, a waitress-gunslinger as of today, hid in the house and as soon as Mark Berti took out his gun for a walk, she fired a bullet into his parietal, which luckily stayed lodged in the victim's skull and did not it went further... because in a straight line was Sam Stiller.
Languid, limp and lifeless
Angélica's satisfied face after killing Mark is worthy of a professional hitman
Now, with the three million (two million that Hans still had under the mattress, and the million that the naive Mark Berti had brought), Angelica and Sam Stiller are going to go live at the Sunset Resort in the Bahamas and drink champagne, until they the real FBI offers a reasonable sum for the dossier.
The adventure of the crushes
A kiss before deploying the flaps
Together, Angelica and Sam take off in the Cessna Skyhawk for Nassau with the moral that even when the going gets tough, everything can change for the better, and that feelings should be put aside when things happen. this kind of business.
A new criminal couple has been born that is reminiscent of feature films like Badlands, by Malick, or Wild at Heart, by Lynch, and together they will seek a calmer path that will lead them back to the light.
Take off!
Unanswered questions remain. Is Valeria Nats mute or is she just another victim of the public school language level? Her silence suggested that she could be up to something or even that she was an informant for another intelligence agency, but she has not intervened in any phase of the operation.
On the other hand, was Mark Berti another hit man hired by Tony Gutti who, like NASA, decides not to take risks and does everything twice, and the first to get hold of the dossier wins? Tony Gutti seems to be that type of controlling kingpin who leaves nothing to chance so it is very possible that he is.
Finally, I fantasize about the possibility that Piero Gutti wanted to put his father in jail to inherit the rowdy scepter of power early and that's why he was in the Caribbean with the dossier, looking for a buyer. His father would have given him 2 million in a briefcase trying to stop his son's plans...
We will never have answers... or, maybe we will, in a sequel... but it is a priority in a good FSC review to ask these questions.
THE END
RATING: 7/10
Info:
Private Tropical 34 "Caribbean Sea Conspiracy"
Year: 2007
Genre of the plot: thriller, gangsters
Paradise destination: Guadeloupe
Actors: Lauryn Way, Carla Box, Ellen Haint, Tarra Wait, Cindy Collar, Franco Trancedancer, Peter Benis, George Bull
Where can I find it: Private or Google
Link to Spanish version
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