Adios Vaya Con Dios (2014) User Reviews

Highly original

[keyads · 10/10 · 22 January 2016]

With an over-saturation of Independent films, and 'no' I'm not including the low budget B- Movies that pop out for genre fair, do yourself a favor and check out Adios Vaya Con Dios. Don't be deceived by the premise that reflects a gangster movie. The film couldn't have been put together more creatively and the experimentation of bringing the genuine community into the movie pays off.

Highly original, that is the title of this review because it is and someone needs to be the advocate of the art house film approach to a gangster genre film. The movie that comes to observance on the same parity would be the Brazilian film City of God. That film in particular had twenty times the budget (being a throw back 70's piece), but like Adios Vaya Con Dios there was an artistic methodology. In Adios Vaya Con Dios the film is less action and more talk, more the analysis of social issues that plague the Chicago Latino communities. It's a smart film and 'no' they don't insult my intelligence, nor will they yours.

I'll be straightforward, with the few independent films I will watch in 2016, I want to be hard, I want to be critical, I want to smack sense into filmmakers once and a while. The poster of the movie invited me; I wanted to 'throw down' some film tips to Adios Vaya Con Dios and shame on me. This film humbled me, watching the behind the scenes further made me appreciate the bravery of all the participants.

Mean and ugly neighborhoods can create the most beautiful and imaginary minds. The coming together of executive producer Monica Esmeralda Leon and writer/actor Zachary Laoutides collaborated a perfect artistry in the streets. I hope people pay attention.

Beyond bullets

[jessonstatim · 10/10 · 6 April 2016]

If you think you're getting guns and action you're completely in for a surprise. I didn't expect a film carved out with such an artistic hint. Actor and writer Zachary Laoutides does something very different then just your classic gangster film. Adios Vaya Con Dios may have not reached it's full potential due to limitations, but creatively Zachary Laoutides with his talented art designer, Alfredo Kaos Leon who created the skeletorian makeup add depth into the lackluster films that Hollywood has been creating that trust in formulations.

There is something different at work here, one in the stylishness of how the film is shot by Timothy J. Aguado, the rock music, the transitions from scenes introducing us with montage setups, as Olmec gang leader Tiger De'Leon puts it, "This isn't your hood," and I'm glad it's not the typical Hollywood hood instead we are getting something intellectual and imaginative.

It may disappoint some, who are awaiting gang warfare to erupt on the tough Chicago streets, but Zachary Laoutides stays authentic and truthful to the storytelling and budget he had.

A Spanish Gangster art house film

[streetartistpromotions · 9/10 · 3 March 2016]

Adios vaya con dios gets into a tempo from the opening. It pieces together resembling a Spanish international art house film, with elongated musical mosaics, black and white instances, with two opening credit sequences. It's experimental art with a new coined style of filmmaking, the La Raza method (the experimentation of putting real people into a film and utilizing an urban neighborhood for involvement). Luckily, everyone showed up and everyone foresaw the movie to its completion. The merging of professional actors with real posses, real populaces from the streets, to collaborating the entire film with euro rock: Manchester artists Liam Williams, Joel Goldberg and Mexican artists Gaston Sanchez, Alex Villareal, Andres Kamorlinga and Mickey Synteklas, a gangster art house film is born!

The pinnacle of the movie's success is the musician's because the film has such a strong soundtrack. If not for the music that travels through the film we would be left with a very different result. With no uncertainty the musical commitment to the La Raza method brought the film onto a new level of appreciation.

Adios vaya con dios is an art film that transcends into the mainstream, it is an exploration of what happens when you put hoodlums, gangs and community into a film. You may suppose the film would be a cataclysm and unsafe, nonetheless the movie uses the danger to inescapably become its definitive force.

Deep details in Crime

[smithclarkst · 7/10 · 6 April 2016]

What I appreciated most about Adios Vaya Con Dios was the careful attention to the details with the ensemble of criminals in the film. The movie plays like an artistic documentary following Rory King, played by writer Zachary Laoutides in a typical week inside the Chicago neighborhoods. The story takes an authentic approach and achieves what it set out to accomplish, to make us feel we are always in journey with Rory. At times it's fun being a fly on the wall, being intrigued by the details of crime and the intricate characters Laoutides creates.

Gio Angeli, played by Joseph Mennella, one the few Italians left in the neighborhood that desperately tries to hold grips on a fading dynasty, efforts to flex his muscles while his father is locked up in Jail. Rory's cousin Maurice, played by Michael Hammond, a police officer who is racially mixed like himself, whose corruption runs deep not from his Mexican roots, rather his Irish family. These are just a few of the diverse casts that makes Adios Vaya Con Dios a smart film demanding we pay close attention from the opening scene where Spanish Narration gives us extra intelligence on what Rory King is contemplating as he strains to figure out his exit strategy.

Although we may sense the film can be overly artistic at stretches you need to applaud the artistic choices as the film takes the genre of urban, gangster and Latino and in its place prepares the experience as organic and alternative. It's a dish that works and a tale worth revisiting if the story of an Irish Mexican finds his way back again into the callous mean streets.

Fresh storyline and powerful performances.

[melissarmcdougall · 10/10 · 6 April 2016]

We trail lead nominated actor and writer Zachary Laoutides, Rory King, over his journey to bounce town only to have his friend Eloy get released from prison, flinging his strategies of getaway to the wind. Zachary Laoutides gives a nearly silent performance at times; we see his distress walking through the dangerous streets concluded by his despondent face. I speculated why his performance was reserved, but it makes sense, as urban cities tend to become the recluse havens where gangs become ones voice. Rory King being half Mexican with an Irish last name adds to his trauma.

Marius Iliescu playing the Olmec gang leader Tiger as well as his young brother, Bones, played my Emmanuel Isaac show the insanity of gang allegiances. Something Rory King is trying to escape. The movie is shot artistically, from Timothy J. Aguado's swapping from black and white, to his raw shots of Rory's burning off his tattoos. The film impressions are dated belonging in the late 70's or early 80's, a foreign grouping with Spanish narration throughout the movie. To his acclaim Zachary Laoutides' writing keeps a rapidity that never gets dull moving us artistically from one scene to the next by way of music video mixtures, to serious situations with very serious repercussions.

The film seems to hint another chapter, which may be the methodology of what Zachary Laoutides is trying to achieve, the survival rate for the main characters appear at good odds, their larger then life one-liners and intricate development look like they can stick around for yet another phase.

Adios to old clichés.

[heatherwthurman · 10/10 · 6 April 2016]

I don't think we can demand a more creative script and film from the ingredients we see recycled in Hollywood every year. Writer and actor Zachary Laoutides teams up with Executive Producer Monica Esmeralda Leon using her tough neighborhood not only to setup the locations for the movie, but also integrating all walks of life from inside the neighborhoods metamorphosis-iring them into actors and actresses. It's not only the reality of using the human materials from the streets, but the studio Ave Fenix Pictures borrowing real stories that have become legend to the locals while using an art house film approach.

At times the film recalls a European Spaniard sense of cinema, having a stable Spanish narrator giving extra facts and storyline as the movie travels forward. The cinema looks aged, dark, raw and at times grainy moving us into the next episodic quest Rory must attend to. The movie is scored by European ambient psychedelic rock by United Kingdom musicians Liam Williams and Joel Goldbreg. Mexican pop start Gaston Sanchez joins in with alternative beats that give us classic Sylvester Stallone montages.

Adios Vaya Con Dios Bel-Air Film Festivals Official Selection racking up several nominations is a work of art, is a work of the tragedy and beauty of where one grows up. Too bad Adios Vaya Con Dios didn't embark on the art house film festivals circuit, as I believe they would have quadrupled awards and nominations constructing a nonpareil film not observed before.

Are you ready!

[minniewmiles · 10/10 · 6 April 2016]

"Are you ready!" The young gangster Bones, played by Emmanuel Isaac, who lives and dies Olmec gang banger philosophies, yells to his Santa Muerte face painted crew before he puts the hit on Eloy Rosales, played by Albertho Garcia. It's a retribution killing after Eloy stomped to death Tiger De'Leon, played by European actor Marius Iliescu, the merciless sexual predator.

All the actors in the film have their moments and have memorable one-liners, courtesy of lead actor and screenplay writer Zachary Laoutides who plays Rory King a half Mexican and white Olmec gang member trying to navigate his way out of a life of criminality. Laoutides invests all his larger then life characters inside an urban odyssey, they are individual social adventures getting us closer to Rory's goal of leaving town, but in actuality they push him further from his goal.

The subtle performances that seem to analyze and survive every situation they're in belong to Laoutides and Garcia, best friends for life and a bond that forces Rory to treat Eloy with special gloves resulting in them becoming deep into misfortune with the Olmec Jefe's, aka the bosses. From the opening of the movie the scene unseals intensity from Rory and Eloy and the ending closes the film with the same nerve-wracking sentiment from these two fine performances.

Art wins in the streets.

[jameskortar · 10/10 · 6 April 2016]

A gangster art house film. There I said it, never thought I would, never thought I would see a Chicago movie about gangs play out as an artistic piece; reminiscent at times of Alejandro González Iñárritu's early work Amores Perros. This is a much more organic attempt at mixing real people and real places into a cinematic story. At moments I could tell the local actors who were picked up and placed into the movie from the theater actors (at times over projecting) to the film actors who performed in refinement.

Adios Vaya Con Dios is a mix of different intensities, but it works just as good as it will get knowing how movie was filmed. Zachary Laoutides' unconventional script gives us something completely distinctive then what we would expect a stereotypical Latino gangster movie to include. It's even difficult for me to call it 'gangster' or 'Latino' for that matter. It's something unalike on the artistic side of the tracks and because of that I enjoyed it. Art wins in the streets.

Maybe it's the euro rock music that was selected featuring artists from the UK and Mexico that transformed the tempo of the film or maybe it's the realism of every time Zachary Laoutides is on camera and we see his internal pain, a rather silent performance, but he doesn't need to say much. I'm interested in following the La Raza film movement, so it's been coined; to see what this group of artists create next as it's something fresh and stimulating, not falling into the cliché of movie-making.