Product Details

• Actors: Gael García Bernal, Ana Claudia Talancón, Sancho Gracia, Angélica Aragón, Luisa Huertas
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: April 22, 2003
• Run Time: 118 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00008AOX5
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,273 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Crime of Padre Amaro" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This controversial film follows a handsome young priest, Padre Amaro (played by Gael Garcia Bernal from Y Tu Mamá También and Amores Perros), who arrives in a small town and finds himself surrounded by hypocrisy and corruption--and also finds himself tempted by a beautiful young woman who confesses that when she "touches herself," she thinks of Jesus. What makes El Crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro) particularly effective is that Amaro is no innocent--he skillfully forces a newspaper publisher to retract a scandalous story about the Church and is willing to take extreme steps to preserve his career. Some of the movie's harsher digs at the Catholic Church have provoked accusations of prejudice; but though Padre Amaro portrays a world in which no one's hands are clean, it also finds redeeming qualities in every character. A complex, completely engrossing movie. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

CRIME OF PADRE AMARO - DVD Movie

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best of the New Mexican Cinema!!, May 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Crime of Padre Amaro (DVD)

I loved Amores Perros (once I got over the dog fighting) and Y Tu Mama Tambien - to be honest, I did not expect El Crimen del Padre Amaro to come anywhere close to these two gems. I was happily mistaken. The acting was magnificent, the directing apt, and the setting eminently appropriate to the subject matter. The film, based on a Portuguese novel written in 1875, is very apt not only in the context of the Mexican Catholic Church but also in light of recent events in the North American Catholic Church. The film addresses many issues facing the church - celibacy being the most advertised, but also liberation theology, women's rights, corruption, and the church hierarchy in itself. Though it deals specifically with the Catholic Church, this film reaches viewers of all faiths, and its relevance to today's society cannot be stressed enough.

Now on to the more specific comments on the DVD version. I found the *extras* to be interesting, especially the movie trailers, but I found the Making-of to be a disappointment in that it did not offer much insight into the process of making the film. The commentary, on the other hand, I did find to be interesting and useful. Overall, the film itself overcomes any flaws in the DVD presentation.

If you have not seen this film yet, you need to. It will not be 2 hours wasted.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazingly Powerful Film, April 23, 2003

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Crime of Padre Amaro (DVD)

EL CRIMEN DEL PADRE AMARO packs a wallop on many levels. Based on an 1875 novel, this story of the gradual downfall of an idealistic young priest sent out into the reality of the clerical world in the small villages in Mexico updated to contemporary times is unrelentingly fascinating, visually stunning, uncompromisingly frank in its stance on Catholic decadence, and directed and acted with finesse. Gael Garcia Bernal continues to mature as an actor and as a screen presence, making his Padre Amaro metamorphose from committed innocent to fallen sparrow in a wholly credible fashion. Despite our sadness with his bad decisions and choices, Bernal is able to keep us with this complex young priest and in doing so we are able to clearly examine the fragmented state of affairs in the hands of various priests tainted with lust, pride, sloth and a bit of each of the seven deadly sins. Director Daniel Carrera knows how to create both spectacular and intimate scenes and he masterfully leads his gifted cast through a more than difficult story.

If there is a tendency to berate this film for its anticlerical stance, then the point of the story is missed. Each of the myriad characters, sacred and profane alike, has a soul of good and one of vulnerability, and given the current tenuous state of the Catholic Church under seige, I think this film helps explain how even men of the cloth can be human. Kudos for Gael Garcia Bernal, Ana Claudia Talancion, Damian Alcazar and all of the fine cast and crew that created this very impressive and disturbing piece of art.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a definite see for Gael fans, March 20, 2005

By 

eunibird - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Crime of Padre Amaro (DVD)

Let me start off by saying I am a huge Gael García Bernal fan. This was the movie to take the cake for me with his acting. His portrayal as a lust-striken youthful priest was so convincing it took my breath away. I was thoroughly impressed with being able to see in his eyes the desire and gradual compromises he disolved to. The movie did dish out some pretty hard-hitting statements about corruption within the Catholic church, but what of it? There lacked a certain something in the film's commentary, somewhat one-sided, I'll admit, but I felt this was justified given the story focuses over one man's plight, between his (apparently shakey) convictions and his new-found desires. The title says it all--it's about the sins of one man, Padre Amaro. It is not a thorough exposé of all the Catholic church, in which case there would be truths regarding the bad and the good. Now the reason I gave the movie 4 instead of 5 stars, was simple. The ending was anticlimatic in that it seemed to take the easy way out of a big problem created by our protagonist. The film did too good a job building up the problem making you eagerly anticipate the resolution. The way Padre Amaro takes his final step into "the other side" as a priest, was too easy and quick. I wondered how a character who started off so devout to God's service could not see through his own transparent attempt to explain away his final actions. When people sell out, it tends to be more gradual. Well then again I suppose that's the limitation of films over books. I would recommend this to those who are not overly-defensive of the Catholic church, who can simply enjoy it as a tale of one man's flaws. After all, no one's perfect and that's called humanity.