This is my second time trying to watch this movie. The first time, I made it approximately 5 seconds in before deciding I wasn't in the mood. But I have to watch it. Just look at the cover.
It's like it was made for this blog.
Accion Mutante is a...movie. I think. It was released in 1993 in Spain.
It starts with screaming, no doubt what I will want to do soon.
There's lot of subtle Christian imagery
A newsreporter claims that Matias Pons, president of the bodybuilding club, was killed. They believe it to be the work of the terrorist group Mutant Action.
If this movie has nothing to doo with disability, i'm still good with that one image.
After the credits, which were....lively, the news report continues. Nice of them to pause for us.
The news reporters says that a group of invalids are targetting people like bodybuilders and institutions for public health. We see a shoot-out at some workout.
So, this is just a regular Zumba session, right?
I've made jokes in the past about analyzing the deep social commentary in these movie before. I never thought there would actually be social commentary worthy of analysis in a self-describde shlock film.
The reporter tells us the cast list:
Alex and Juan Abadie- Siamese twins
Cesar Ravestein , alias Quimicefa- 5 kilos of explosives in chest implant
Jose Teleria- alias Manitas. mechanix. Uses cruthes.
Amancio Gonzales (Alias MA) Deaf-mute, one of world's lowest IQs but extraordinary strength
Jose Montera, Hunchbacked dwarf, Jew, mason, communist and presumed homosexual.
Ramon Yarritu- leader. who was jailed and recently released after 5 years
I can't complain about narrative laziness in this kind of film, can I?
Cut to a new newsreporter. Is this whole movie going to be a series of news programs? She tells us that the Orujo famiy will have wedding for their daughter, Patricia, the only heiress.
Nice of the TV show to line up the two relevant stories for the plot.
Cut the headquarters and a hand takes down some random newspaper items.
Yarritu, the leader, is told to "hit the fucking road." He leaves a prison (so not their headquarters) and approaches truck. The gang drives away and lament that it took so long to bust Yarritu out of jail.
The police enter a bar with riots and the van drives past them. Will that be relevant? Or has it been too long without an act of violence?
Yarritu pulls a lever to let them into the headquarters. The framing is strange- it shows the camera footage. So can anyone just pull the lever and get in or is it some sort of facial recognition access? I hope the security is better than the lever, because they drove a very conspicuous fan to get there.
This isn't worth that level of thought,
Yarritu claims that the computer is not functioning well.
Yarritu asks about some essentials. Namely, his tuxedo, the guns, and the cake
Wait, what?
They leave in five minutes and need a perfect cake. Given the inclusive theme of the group, I hope it is gluten-free.
Yarrutu tells Manitas to "Feed the cat", which is some sort of creature trapped in a cellar that is certainly not going to be relevant later
They ask whether yarritu was angry. The whole "being in prison for five years" might have something to do with it. Also, they apparently failed in some attack and need to restructure.
There are some wacky hijinks involving pipe fluid. An alarm goes off and it ends like this:
Some social context, which I had to look up. This movie came out in 1993. At the time, the Social Integration of Disabled People Act of 1981 was the latest piece of disability legisltion. It didn't address employment directly, but laid the groundwork for future legislation. In 1993, the Spanish Council of Representatives of People with Disabilities (CERMI) was formed and played an active role in including a section on people with disabilities in the 1998 National Action Plans for Employment. (Verdugo et al. 2001)
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm about 99% sure that labor laws don't apply to illegal terrorist organizations. Still, they are useful for any organization.
Yarritu goes over the plan. he lays out a map and says they will go by truck around the two guards. They say that the place ordered a cake, and the real cake truck will come fifteen minutes after they enter with the decoy cake.
Alex say that they can open up a hole in the door to make it go faster. Yarritu accuses him of not thinking out his plans and thats why so many of them went wrong. Including letting a plastic surgeon jump out of a speeding car and detonating some explosives at a fashion show after everyone had left the area.
Yarritu says he will make the group great again and asks the "three questions"
Why is this group different from all other groups?
Sorry,
Where were you when we met?
(Answers vary)
Who Made you what you are?
(You, Ramon)
And what are you now?
(mutants, mutants, mutants)
Yarritu says they will move past attacking representations of health and beutiful and on to "bigger stuff."
Cut to a wedding. I think..
It's for the Orujo family. Who were on the news. Get it? Thats why they had to make the wedding cake. Man, I sure hope the guards won't question the cake being delivered fifteen minutes early in an unmarked van by terrorists who are constantly on the news.
They don't even have disguises. The guards are robotics, I think. What? The guards will only let two of them in, so the conjoined twins enter with the cake.
The three other members try to bribe their way in, but thata doesnt work, so M.A. shoots them.
Er, kind of of ruining the "inconspicious" plan.
there is someone inside the cake. If you had the people who were on the news inside the cake and unknown people ouside the cake, maybe this plan would make sense.
At the party, the discuss their plan behind the cake in a classic comedy routine. The joke is that nobody knows what the plan is and keep asking questions.
Chepa is inside the cake, They argue about who will cut the cake, who will play the music Aire's de Fiesta and who will cut the lights. It's, uh, sure to be a hit comedy sketch.
Inside the cake, Chepa is singing a relevant song
Patricia and her groom are attempting to cut the cake.
Don't drink and slice, kids.
(Hey, I get to reuse jokes)
So, there must have been a part of the planning process where they realized that the scheme hinged on someone slicing open the cake without slicing into Chepa, correct? And Chepa takes up most of the space inside the cake. Look at the knife:
The bride screas, Cheps pops out of the cake and starts shooting
It's funny because they are at a wedding
Chepa manages to kill off most of the people at the wedding, but dies in the process. Oh well, You can't have your cake and eat it too.
SOMEHOW, the bride didn't get killed in this massacre. I guess she was too important to the plot.
The other cake deliverymen come in right on time: Irony o'Clock.
I have a complaint. These cake deliverymen are from a company called Tastellero. Obviously, the robot guards woud have very specific instruction as to whom to let it. So why didn't the people in charge of security at the wedding program the robots to recognize Tastellero?
For that matter, you own a massive bakery chain called Orujo's, but you order a cake from a competitor for your own daughter's wedding?
Whatever, Yarrutu shoots the Tastellero deliverymen. He will later give a Tastellero a negative review on Yelp.
The police make a half-hearted to come in after the massacre.
 |
The groom and Patricia's father watch a pre-recorded ransom video of Yarruti. He says he will be moving across outer space with his dauhter when he watches the tape. He wants 100 million Ecus in an an anti-fusion case two days after he gets the tape.
 |
| WAIT, WHAT? |
The robot guards clued me in that this wasn't taking place in 1993.But I thought the outer-space thing was a metaphor or something. So now this is scienece-fiction. Okay.
The cargo is fish. This robot police asks the fisherman where the Accion Mutante ship is and they say it went in another direct the police leave..
It's not really a fisherman boat. It's the Accion Mutante ship. Seemed fishy.
The gang members are playing poker for their share of the ransom member. The conjoined twins try to bet, but the other member says that they ony have one share. This results in a gun.
The TV shows the newsreporter talking about the kidnapping. They found that the bodies of Chepa and M.A. The reporter reveals that the ransom was set for 100,000,000 Ecus, but Ramon told the gang that t was only 10,000,000.
The gang members confront Ramon about the discrepancy. Ramon accuses them of trusting the TV over him.
Ramon convinces them that the TV reporter was mistaken and chastises them for not doing matainence on the ship. He does the motivational questions.
Alex and Juan walk down a corridor to check the turbo-compressors. They don't know where they are
Ramon talks to Manitas about misreporting the ransom accounts. This is his way of motivational speaking.
Then he feeds Manitas to a creature living in the cellar of the ship. We see a lovely gory shot of the creature biting off Manita's head. Alex and Jaun walk in. Alex screams and they go to save manitas. But fail. Ramon claims that a traitor in their ranks murdered Manitas. He says to wait for a few hours and the traitor will reveal himself
I put in the movie wanting to see some mindless gore and action. I wasn't expecting social commentary on disability and the inner politics of a terrorist organization.
Speaking of mindless gore, the creature spits out Manitas's foot. Alex shoots at it.
Okay, that was a hilarious line. Why is this movie good?
Juan and Alex narrow down the traitor to "not one of them". Because they do everything together.
That leaves Ramon and Quimecefa. Quimifeca appears and says that Ramon did it.
There is some biting commentary on the Spanish higher education system.
Ramon hides behind a panel and listens to Alex talking to Patricia, while Juan sleeps. Alex plays marriage counselor, apologizes for the wedding thing, and says that her fiance just wanted her money.
Unlike the terrorist group holding her for ransom.
Alex says that in the long run, they did her a favor. (funny line about Stockholm Syndrome.)
Alex tells Juan to get lost in an attempt at humor.
Ramon reveals himself to Patricia and walks to Quimicefa. He says that he found the traitor, and it is himself.
Quimecefa complains that the movie script made it too obvious that Ramon was the traitor for it to be a satisfying reveal. Then Ramon pulls the pin in Quimcefa's chest and he blows up.
Ramon claims that it was suicide because Quimcefa was the traitor.
Given the subject matter of the movie and how great it is, I can't complain.
Cut to Alex waking up as Juan's blood spurts out. Ramon has stabbed Juan's neck. Alex points his gun at Ramon, but ramon talks and convinces Alex that Juan was a traitor and now they don't have to split the money three ways. Also, he can pay for the operation to remove Juan with his $5,000,000 Alex accepts this and lowers the gun.
Sorry, I made a typo in the last sentence. What I meant to type was "Alex shoots Ramon in the crotch"
Ramon confesses that it was really $100,000,000. and not to ruin
I haven't heard (read, subtitles) lines that great since Casablanca.
Patricia manages to escape from her restraints by...moving her arms a little.
This movie has passed its violence quota and just realized that it hasn't started on the sex quota yet. That means jiggling your arms in a low-cut dress while the camera zooms in your cleavage frees you from your restraints. Logic.
Ramon and Alex wrestle around. Juan's head hits the switch that makes the sprinklers go off. Chekov's sprinklers.
Alex and Patricia reach for the gun.
Really not the best time for romantic tension.
Ramon picks up Alex and slams his head on control panel. The computer says "self-destructing in 30 seconds." Patricia hears, but Ramon doesn't.
He is Objectively wrong.
Ramon completely ignores the warnings about the ship exploding until it happens.
THE END.
Not the end.
Cut to Orujo looking at the exploding ship on a screen and being remarkably calm about his daughter blowing up. His companion says this:
Cut to Ramon walking out of the rubble
I haven't seen direction that clever since One-Armed Executioner.
Ramon drags an unconscious Patricia onto the planet. She wakes up and says she had a dream about getting married, then she killed a hunchback, got kidnapped on a spaceship for ransom, and saw someone try to kill Ramon. She couldn't help, and ask if they will have to kill her father.
I could have skipped the first hour or so of this movie
This movie is doing my job for me. Ramon drags patricia along.
Pan over some footprints in the desert. Alex is still alive...somehow. Maybe because there are is still half-an-hour left and there needs to be more than than one accion mutante for the title to work.
A Moses figure looks from a hill.
...I just had a moment of self-realization that I am spending time finding Biblical imagry in shlocky exploitation films. But doesn't it look like a Moses figure?
A vulture tries to attack Alex. The Moses figure comes and parts the...something with his staff.
Okay, I guess that is not Moses
Orogos and his assistant have a small armed force with them.
Ramon drags Patricia across the desert.
Stop being genuinly funny, accion mutante
She says she spent 21 years living a lie with her father.
She says she admires ramon's attempt to destroy the status quo and make everyone mutilated so there is no more hierarchy through physical appearance.
Stop delivering genuine social commentary, accion mutante.
The movie remembers which genre it is supposed to be and goes back to gore. Good. The guy with the goggles is attending to Alex and his dead brother. He says he will have to amputate Juan of them.
There is a particularly gruesome shot of Juan's dead head on their body.
Patricia plays psychologist.
This is actually hilarious, and not in an unintentional way. Off all the descriptors I thought I would give this movie, "intelligently funny" was not one of them.
A new character comes runnng and screamng to Patricia.
That's ableist.
He brings them to his residence. Man, sure was lucky that the character was wandering 30 kms away from the house and happened to stumble upon Ramon and Patricia.
Two men run inside to talk to their leader and say a woman came. The three of them walk outside.
Alex and the guy with goggle walk through the desert. Juan was not amputated- instead his head was stitched up and injected with chemicals (I think) so it would stay upright. Alex says that he used to trust laments that he never could have a woman with alex around.
At the hide-out. one of the men say that they have not seen a woman in a long time. He says that his grandson Zacariah has never seen a woman
Great, I was worried we would go through this entire movie without misogyny like that.
The men ask to buy Patricia for all them have. Ramon first asks for 100,000,000 , but the men laugh and offer 200,000 and 200 videos, I assume pornographic videos.
The man who does the speaking for the group tells Zacariah to go to his room because they are going to kill Ramon. That's ageist.
The men all pull out knives, but Ramon retaliates:
Bring a gun to a knife fight.
The men obviously don't understand the concept of "Once you pull a knife on someone for not making a deal, you've forfeited your negotiation rights" They ask for a rental for an hour
I'm not enirely sure what happens next. I think hat one of the men pick something up, Ramone is distracted, and another man stabs him in the chest. I think. It's difficult to make out when picture quality is so poor and the lighting is dark.
The point is, the men capure Ramon and Patricia. And Ramon has a knife in his chest.
Cut to a skeleton hanging from a tree. The guy with the goggles says that he proposed to his future wife almost twenty years ago. He says he loved her, and that they bought her.
I'm glad they are cramming in all the objectification of women in the latter half of the movie. I was worried the movie would end without meeting the mysogyny quota.
The man with the goggles says he will give Alex some advice about women he will never forget. Then he dies because irony. And a Wild Miner shot him.
Six solid second of Zacarais stroking Ramon's open wound wih a metal chip. Lovely.
My theory is that this film has a mandated high Gore:Sex ratio. The first half of the film had almost no sex and lots of gore. Now that there is more sex in the second half, they have to balance it out with more intense gore.
The men take Patricia into th next room to rape her.
I made a decision not to cover any serious movies with sexual assault and not to comment on the sexual assault scenes in movies like this.
Zacarais comes out and finds a way to pour salt in an open wound.
It involves pouring salt into Ramon's open wound.
Also, vinegar.
I was honestly kind of afraid to watch this movie. The back says it was a "gore-fest" and I haven't seen many of those. For the first 2/3s of the movie, I was a combination of disappointed and relieved. The gory and violent shots lasted only a few seconds and story was actually interesting. But for the final third, it looks like the movie will just be, uh, more over-the-top violent without the store development scenes getting in the way.
For example. the last we saw Alex, he was running away after from the Wild Miners after Goggle Guy died. After the vinegar scene, the movie cuts to Alex strung up on a tree with a rope around Juan's neck and the Wild Miners driving aound him in a truck. Then they get bored and drive to "Some place more lively." Presumably the Lost Mine
Are you wondering how the movie will show Ramon and Patricia escaping? Too bad. The next scene cuts to Patricia driving and Ramon waking up. He asks what happened. She replies that the director didn't want to include the escape scene. She got a map from the kid "with a deal"
That is the most disturbing thing in this movies so far
Also, Zacarias opens the door, and finds the three men naked and tied up. (Screenshot withheld)
Now I'm all in favor of gender equality and think there should be strong female representation in the media. But based on the first hour of this movie, I don't think feminists will be too thrilled. So I have to ask, how was one tied-up woman able to overtake and restrain three burly men?
Patricia and Ramon drive past the tree with Alex and don't notice him.
Cut to...a tavern? The wild miners kick the man with the goggles down the stairs. Then they beat him up.
I'm trying to imagine that 1992(?) board meeting
Executive: I know Coca-Cola is pretty much the most powerful and recognizable brand, or at least close to it, but you know what would really help our image? A couple seconds of product placement in a shlocky, exploitation film.
Orujo, his assistant, and his guards are a the tavern. A waiter comes over and asks hows the food. Orujo shoots him because Yelp hasn't been invented. His assistant has a bomb on the table and warns Orujo that the bomb will cause collateral damage. Orujo seems less concerned with his daughter and more concerned with killing Ramon. This is called "Prioritization"
Patricia's husband comes in and calls Orujo, "Dad." They go off to the mine.
The tree branch finally snaps and Alex falls. Once he hits the ground, a bulldozer hits him in the head. Really convinient timing for ... slapstick?
The men from whom Patricia and Ramon escaped ride the buldozer. Two of hem call Alex a mime, but the driver lets him ride to the Mine.
(I wasn't intending mime/mine to be on the ends of the clauses.)
Ramon and Patricia enter the tavern.Ramon asks for whiskey on the rocks. The bartender warns them that Orujo is there.
Patricia downs some whiskey and eagerly asks what the plan is with his father's money.
Ramon says "Let me make this clear once and for all"
I find this legitimately hilarious.
It devolves to Patricia saying she loves Ramon
Ramon tries to go after Patricia, but a miner confronts him. The miner asks Patricia whether Ramon was bothering her, and Ramon says this
Patrcia punches the miner
That scene was, um, pointless.
The newsrepporter come into the bar. They start a broadcast with Orujo here.
Oh, it's the Lost Mine Bar.
Orujo carries the bomb. The fiance says that he is repulsed by the kidnapping and wants to thank the authorities politic figures.
The newsreporter says "and now a message from our sponsor"
Ok, that was hilarious
The final showdown occurs with no police, just a tv crew. Is this some sort of social commentary? Ramon holds Patricia with a gun pointed out across the bar.Orujo has the bills in an anti-fusion case.
The fiance offers to hand over the case. He puts on a hat for the camera and smiles. Patricia is freed, but she holds her fiance hostage and holds a gun to his head.
Ramon opens the case and finds...comic books and magazines.
Calling the movie out on this one. Orujo clearly did not want to engage Ramon in a fight- otherwise he would have brought more guards and he saw Ramon had a gun. So why provoke him? Furthermore, Orujo counted on Ramon being uncharacteristically stupid. Namely, not asking Orujo to open the case and show him the money before the exchange. Which he did for some reason.
Ramon pulls out his gun and shoots the TV reporter. Ramon says all of his men have guns pointing at Orujo. Orujo holds his own daughter captive and says he will kill everyone.
Well, I certainly didn't see the coming. I mean, it doesn't make much sense, but I didn't see it coming.
Orujo threatens to press the button and blow everyone up.
That is a true statement. It's called mortality.
Orujo laments spending his life building a business he hates and the fact that terrorists infltrated his daughter's wedding He also disowns his daughter and calls her a whore.
...That would probably be emotionally devestating if she wasn't so pre-occupied with the bomb about to explode.
Also, we don't need deep character motivations- it's been a long time since the last gory shot.
Orujo is about to press the button when he gets shot in the head.
By Alex.
Man, the timing of people being in certain places at certain times is almost as amazing as it was in Crimson Bat: The Blind Swordswoman.
There is a huge gun fight between Ramon and the miners. The Coca-Cola sign is visible, making me question the brand vision again.
You've kind of ruined your shot at female empowerment,
After a few more seconds of a stalmeated gun shot, a poice missle enters. A voice commands Mutant Accion to surrender, as the police are surrounding the Mine.
That's ableist. Some people don't have multiple hands.
The TV reporter comes out with a white handkercheif waving, but gets shot anyway. The combatants decide that they shoud just go all out and shoot widely. Two of the men mercy-kill each other, and the others stand up and die to Ramon's fire.
One of the miners dies on Ramon's lap.
Everytime I laugh at this movie, I feel guilty.
Ramon says that they have run out of ammo. The movie goes for female empowerment one more time and Patricia crawls over the counter to reach a gun.
She gets it, but her knee nudges the bomb. God damn it.
Alex picks it up. Ramon takes it from him and says "You are still useless, Alex."
Ramon kisses Patricia deeply and runs out of the Mine, clutching the ticking bomb. Heroic sacrifice?
The bomb explodes above the Mine and the ceiling collapsies. alex crawls out of the rubble, and Juan's dead body detaches itself from him. This symbolizes...
Something.
Alex finds Patricia underneath some rubble. She says they have to get out of there and picks up a gun. They walk off into the not-sunset as the miners sing a song and the credits roll.
Accion Mutante has a great concept, the most interesting portrayal of people with disabilities in anything I have covered so far, clever self-aware humor,good social commentary and strong writing.
It utterly fails to deliver the expected mindless action and gore. 0/10.
Work Cited:
Verdugo, M., Jiménez A. and Jordan F. (2001). Social and Employment policies for
people with disabilities in Spain. In W. Oorscht, and B. Hvinden, Disability Policies
in European Countries, Kluwer Law International, Dordretch, 33-51.
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