the audience applauded

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The film struck me as terribly real. It takes place in the city of Medellin in Colombia, and the plot focuses around a middle-aged man who visits a all-male brothel to meet minor boys to spend time with. In exchange, he gives them anything they want, even the ability to kill (which they then do. A lot). He takes them around the city with him, showing them present-day Colombia (he has two boyfriends over the course of the movie, the most important of which is Alexis).The camera techniques were great, with the use of hand-held cameras (my favorite technique) in many of the most powerful scenes, and the script was an incredible piece of work (Spanish, of course), though the acting was somewhat robotic in some scenes. The main characters are so subversive and parodical of the situation around them that it becomes hard to listen to them at times, but other parts of the film truly draw you in and keep you stuck until the bitter end. Anderson Ballesteros, is a great actor, and his performance is one of the best aspects of the film.I'd recommend this film for anyone who isn't afraid of gritty, sometimes painful, Spanish-language film. The movie can be tough to watch at times, and the subject matter it covers can be devastating and brutal, but it is definitely worth watching and experiencing the film for yourself.

through cinema we all find out that movies have as many motives and meanings as the different tastes everyone has. left alone the fact that this movie was done on a low budget i realized that the movie is not about the violence that plagued the city (medellin)in the 80's and early 90's. after living in the streets of medellin myself through all my childhood, i recognized that the movie was about the main character (fernando) realizing that he has been unhappy for all his life and apparently until it ends, he'll always be. he comes back 30 years later to his birthplace as a "famous writer" being politics his main specialty. just to find out out that his town has changed for worse. he's travelled all over the world and lived in the big cities abroad just to come back to put up with the ignorance and lowlife lifestyle of everyone around him. which is why he attracts all the bad situations that happen in this film. he tries to find love wherever he can find it, and he does so in alexis and then again with wilmar who kills alexis in revenge for having killed his brother and so many other gang members. after seeing all the common-everyday violence he finds useless to kill wilmar in revenge for killing alexis,and instead he emotionally attaches himself to wilmar. just to loose him as easy as he found him. this movie is about the sadness in being unhappy all your life. and the value of it.

Barbet Schroeder demonstrates brilliantly in Our Lady of the Assassins (2000) that he still has a genius for directing art-house masterpieces. His first foreign-film in over ten years, is at turns violent, comical and touching. Fernando (played by German Jaramillo) is a writer who's been living abroad for many years and he has come back to his crime-ridden birthplace, Medellin, to kill himself. His goals in life having been completed, he is ready for death. Or is he? At a party his first week in town, Fernando meets Alexis (Anderson Ballesteros), a 15 year old siccario, or street assassin, who works for Pablo Escobar. Beautiful and carefree, Alexis lives by the gun and carries his weapon everywhere, even into church, always on the look out for enemies and men who want to kill him. Much of the movie, lavishly shot with a hand-held digital camera, focuses on the love affair of Fernando with Alexis, he buys the kid anything he wants and lets him live in his luxury apartment (strangely empty, Fernando tells him that he has all he needs, a good view and plenty of good books) and they wander Medellin, comically in search of a taxi driver who will play good music instead of poppy garbage. Along the way of their savage journey, Alexis kills plenty of people, some for mouthing off, a neighbor for playing drums way too loudly at night and even a machete-wielding cabby who is offended that Fernando calls his music garbage. It is a strange kind of love between the two, but it is a love that reaffirms Fernando's passion for life, even when, as seemed fated to happen, Alexis finally gets killed. The gunfight scenes are amazing, the camera work, lighting and acting all give the impression to the viewer that we are there, witnessing the violence that Medellin's inhabitants have become completely inured to. The sex scenes are never distasteful but instead are somehow touching. The actors portray Fernando's cynicism with the violent world around him and Alexis' passion for life, despite his accepting that he can only survive by killing for both pleasure and money, masterfully. Another masterpiece by Barbet Schroeder, easily on a par with his earlier works such as Barfly and Maitresse. Part surreal odyssey, part machine-gun symphony, part allegory, this film speaks volumes on many different subjects.

I have read several reviews on this film and had seen that it had won numerous awards, but this was one of the worst films of 2000. I am not sure what director Barbet Schroeder or screenwriter Fernando Vallejo were trying to accomplish with this film, but it just didn't happen. I understand that perhaps this was a piece of Fernando Vallejo (the screenwriters) life (see connection of names of Fernando Vallejo and Fernando in the film), but it didn't make any sense. Coupled with the fact that this film was in another language, the overall themes were not brought at well at all.Let's begin with the title. La Virgen de los Sicarios or Our Lady of the Assassins. This is what initially threw me off. I was expecting perhaps a story about assassins (see the title), but that was not the case at all with this film. Alexis (the boy) does nothing more but shoot random people, then director Barbet attempts to make a very big leap with the connection that perhaps Alexis (the boy) is doing nothing more but killing the evil people in the world. He is perhaps doing the work of God himself (or herself). That is a huge assumption, since we have nothing to base this on other than the fact that he kills some random gang members and almost a waitress that did nothing wrong but give them bad service. There is a religious theme in this film, but it is so faint that I had trouble seeing it. There are moments when the two travel to the churches only to find some inhabited by prostitutes and drug addicts. Oh, can't everyone see the heavy and deep symbolism happening here?? Please, I have seen better moments watching crackers in soup.Next, there was the acting in the film, which nobody could do. I don't know if this was everyone's first film or what, but it seemed as if they were all reading their lines from cue cards and overdoing it. Perhaps it was the fact that it was in another language made the acting tough. When English is used, you can sometimes forget the actors and hear the words, this was not the case in this film. The use of Spanish only hurt the actors even more. I believed none of the characters. I couldn't get into them at all, and I blame the actors for that. Fernando (the man) and Alexis (the boy) were the worst. They were supposed to be in love, but that emotion was lost in the first little bit of this film. I never once believed that they were lovers, and that was an important part of the film!! Who wrote this film? I would like to read the three words they must have learned in Screen writing School. I would also like to attend, because it seems as if you can graduate without learning anything. The line that sticks in my mind the most is when Alexis (the boy) is shot down Fernando (the man) takes him to the hospital trying to save him, but sadly Alexis (the boy) dies. The doctor comes out and simply says, "Why did you bring a corpse here?" WHERE ELSE WOULD YOU TAKE IT??? Come on people.Finally, perhaps the hardest part to get over, was the fact that this film was filmed in HD Video format. It just felt like there was an amateur behind the camera instead of a respected director. It also made the film seem more like a movie instead of a story. I was continually reminded that I was watching a movie and not really at that location ... that should never happen. Overall, this was a horrible movie that only proves that critics either love the big budget films, or that little films that apparently need no talent to make at all. I can hear them now, "oh, it foreign and about gay people ... we have to love this one". It is truly a sad day when a film like La Virgen de los Sicarios wins any awards.Well, I am off to shed my tears now and watch something ... anything ... that is better!! Grade: * out of *****