Comedy of Chaos in Chile
By day friends Gringo, Ariel and Pollo do the whole tourist thing whilst they are in Chile, visiting the sights, going to a vineyard and so on. But by nights these three friends hit the clubs looking for fun and sexy women. But there partying lifestyle comes to an abrupt end when they are caught up in an earthquake leaving them not only battling to survive the devastation but also the hoards of criminals who start taking over the streets as society falls apart.
For the first 30 minutes of "Aftershock" you may wonder if you are watching the right movie as we get the exploits of these three friends, spending every night in clubs picking up women. In fact you might wonder if you are watching some Chilean version of "The Hangover" as the whole thing has a more humorous boys will be boys tone. Don't get me wrong as it is all kind of entertaining but also all a bit over indulgent and repetitive.
And then after thirty or forty minutes things start to kick off but the humorous tone initially remains with an element of comedy of errors going on as people die, lose limbs and scream a lot. But I suppose the problem is that the whole comedy of various graphic deaths was not what I was expecting and it left me unsure of whether or not I was enjoying it or just bemused by the wild imagination of Eli Roth who as well as acting in it wrote the movie.
On the subject of Eli Roth it felt like he had spent some time watching "Friends" before doing this as at times he came over all David Schwimmer. In fairness Roth is entertaining in "Aftershock" as are the likes of Ariel Levy and Nicolás Martínez but they don't play memorable characters and sadly without these this movie struggles. It also struggles because none of these characters are really likeable and so you don't feel anything for them.
What this all boils down to is that "Aftershock" feels more like an idea for a horror short which drags a little in order to be an acceptable movie length. And to be honest it feels like Eli Roth let his imagination run riot with a lot of comedy chaos which in a way is not what you are expecting which means at times "Aftershock" struggles to entertain whilst still bemusing you by its randomness.
