Just so...so bad

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This movie is one of the best to show the former Spanish head-of-state. There are various biographies, mainly by English, that portray the General in his most negative aspects. This movie at least shows the qualities of him, not as a governing figure, but also as a human being that was raise as a child and became a hero in the War with Morocco. It is not only of Franco, but also of Spanish history in the beginning of the 20th century. It also shows the personal and emotional aspects of the wars and some acts of heroism. It also denounces the inabilities of the 2nd Republic, which is sometimes held as a pure democratic government, when in fact was not. This movie has many parts that show different sides of the General and how the Spanish history of the time affected him. However, the main point of this movie was made for showing what Francisco Franco really was: a man.

I can write at all...I´m laughing yet!! After seeing this movie... why not a Peace Nobel Adward for Dictator Franco??? Ha, Ha, Ha... It could be ex-aequo with Saddam Hussein!! They were both good people according to their regimes!! Ha, Ha, Ha!!

OK. I just write here because I`ve just seen the (until now) only review, and I just can´t allow that guy to represent my country. Nowadays in Spain there are few people who thinks that Franco was not a dictator, or that have a positive vision of that tyrant. This movie is one of the most funny flicks I´ve ever seen, because it´s like a comic telling how the Generalisimo battled against the Forces of Red Evil and guided Spain to magnificent times of peace and prosperity. The reality?: Franco was an ambitious general that took advantage of an age of commotion to obtain the power, and just kept it by serving the interests of the rich and powerful, as he kept Spain in a permanent age of backwardness and decadence. That´s the truth to the 95% of my countrymen, at least. And this film is just the pathetic example of the cheap propaganda he used to kept the power. I mean, in Spain we don´t recall the figure of Franco with anger; I think slight would be a more appropriate word. So, if anyone is reading this (which I doubt), just be sure that, to my country, Francisco Franco WAS a dictator, and this films truly describes him only as "Perry Mason" described the real legal world (That´s right: nothing to do with reality).

This film, as far as I know, is unique in being the only filmed biography about a Chief of State (not a dictator) who was alive in the moment of its making. It is an extraordinary document of the life of a man who gave away all his life to the service to his country and was capable of lifting Spain up from the ruins of the inevitable Civil War and turning it into one of the ten main world powers. Sáenz De Heredia combines extremely well the ample archive footage (perfectly accompanied by the excellent voice-overs, especially the narrator Ángel Picazo´s) with the present-time conversations with personalities such as Franco himself or journalist/ambassador Manuel Aznar. It is obvious that the movie was made with real loving care by its director and is not only a simple commitment. Those who´ve never got to know the genuine Franco (not the completely false and grotesque figure depicted by many misinformed people) should watch it with true attention.