Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley (1998)

Curiosidades

• Filmado em: Madrid
• Prémios: 2 · Nomeações: 3. Incluindo: prémio Goya de melhor ator coadjuvante; Goya Award for Best New Director

Torrente, the Dumb Arm of the Law is a 1998 Spanish dark comedy film written and directed by Santiago Segura, who stars as José Luis Torrente, a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and fascist former police officer. Characterized by its deliberately cartoonish humor, it proved to be a massive box office hit, and Torrente became part of contemporary Spanish popular culture.

Production

Segura decided to direct his first film while he was preparing the final scene of The Day of the Beast, in which he played one of the leading characters. As an actor, he believed there was enough drama to invoke pity when his character José María dies, but director Alex de la Iglesia ignored him and made him realize that directing his own film was necessary if he desired more creative input on the characters.

According to Segura, he conceived the main character, José Luis Torrente, during a lunch in a Chinese restaurant, when he saw a customer being so rude to a waitress that relatives who had lunch with him felt ashamed. He then gave the character traces of being as despicable and egotistical as Nero from Quo vadis, Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons, or Orson Welles's character Harry Lime in The Third Man.

Vis-à-vis its gross-out vein, the film has also been found to be reminiscent of John Landis's Animal House (Landis himself later made a cameo appearance in the Torrente sequels).

The film had a budget of 280 million peseta (€1.7 million).

Santiago Segura reserved the title role for himself. He put on between 20 and 30 kg to play the character. He had great success in casting Neus Asensi, Jimmy Barnatán, and Javier Cámara, in addition to "reviving" the career of Tony Leblanc, who had been retired for 23 years. The film features numerous cameos by leading Spanish actors like Jorge Sanz, Gabino Diego, and Javier Bardem.

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