Pantaleon êêê

Rated R for strong sexuality, nudity and language

Director

Francisco J. Lombardi

Special Services for our men in uniform

The official tag line for the film is "Captain Pantoja and the Special Service," which refers to a secret mission of Peru's top military brass to send prostitutes for soldiers in remote areas. The intent is to lower the number of reported rapes and shotgun marriages. This could have been a tasteless, tragic-comedy. We were wrong on both counts. Instead, the film is a comedy with serious dramatic social commentary that is well acted, directed and photographed. At various film festivals, the movie has won recognition as Best Picture, Director, Actor, Foreign Film and People's Choice Awards.

General Collazos (Gianfranco Brero) is alarmed at the number of reported rapes by his soldiers who guard remote border areas in Peru. Talk radio evangelist "El Sinchi" (Aristoteles Picho) is getting the townsfolk in one remote village riled up with his broadcasts and the General decides that having soldiers picked from a line-up to marry pregnant women is not the answer to the problem. He decides to enlist Captain Pantoja (Salvador del Solar) to run a secret mission of delivering prostitutes to satisfy his soldiers.

Pantoja is a soldier's soldier, a model of administrative efficiency who lives a clean life with his wife of five years. When the military does a background check they find that he far exceeds his missions, does not question authority, and gets into his job by trying to understand what he asks others to do. He does not drink, smoke or cheat on his wife.

Things are fine until Pantoja gets the details of his mission. He's ashamed to tell his wife Pochita (Monica Sanchez) what he's to do so he lies to her for the first time by saying he has an intelligence type of a mission. She accepts that without question, until he starts coming home in the wee small hours of the morning with the smell of beer on his breath. As part of his research to do a great job and keep things a secret, he studies various reported aphrodisiacs and is soon having sex with his wife three times a day. This is a good thing since they are trying to conceive a child.

Part of the lingo to pull off this mission under the eye of public scrutiny is that sites are beds, users are clients and renderings means having sex. The project is a rousing success and things are wonderful until Pochita finds out what her husband is doing while listening to a broadcast by Sinchi after he becomes angry regarding a failed blackmail attempt.

Pantoja becomes involved with one of his prostitutes, Colombiana (Angie Cepeda) and the line between job and family is crossed, causing consequences he never would have imagined. In the midst of comedy and farce, serious issues are raised relating to prostitution and political hypocrisy. This is not a film to bring kids to as an alternative to paying a baby-sitter, since most of the nudity is gratuitous. That said, it's a fun film for adults.