Orlando Urdaneta Movies
- 1998
Alejandro Saderman directed this Venezuelan-German-U.S. thriller, set during a nationwide financial scandal, about four stressed-out, middle-class guys in desperate financial straits. Their solution is a robbery of the state-run Pan-American Bank. Arriving shortly after the New Year, adman Horacio (Orlando Urdaneta) and childhood pals Valmore (Daniel Lugo), Rogelio (Aroldo Betacourt), and Vicente (Mariano Alvarez) quickly discover that the bank has been victimized in a fake robbery by its own president. Further, accountant Pujol (Armando Gota) managed to beat them to the bank. After the gang mistakes the filming of a TV commercial for TV news cameras, the determined policeman Gomez Lira (Manuel Salazar) and other cops surround the building. Despite the police presence, Horacio successfully cracks the computer code, adds hostages to the heist happening, and finds time for some romance -- as a party atmosphere begins to pervade the stand-off. Shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Orlando Urdaneta, Daniel Lugo, (more)
- 1994
Two years after losing both her husband and an unborn baby in a single week, Alice (Julie Walters) hopes to satisfy her maternal urges by adopting a baby. Unfortunately, the adoption agencies in Britain and the Continent are unable to match up Alice with her much-coveted newborn child. Dragging her reluctant new boyfriend along, Alice heads to the poverty-stricken inner regions of Venezuela, there to find a baby by whatever means possible, legal or otherwise. First telecast on Britain's BBC1 under its original title Bambino Mio, this 90-minute film has been released to video in Europe as Mon Enfant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1994
This erotic Venezuelan thriller features lots of violence and kinky sex. Gyula, is the tough police commissioner who must solve the murder of a wealthy gringo businessman. The prime suspect is his wife, an ex-hooker who is in line for a large inheritance. She still loves her old pimp, Macabi. To solve the case Gyula must go deeply with-in the seamy, sexually violent areas of Caracas as he gathers up groups of prostitutes and pimps. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Orlando Urdaneta, María Rojo, (more)
- 1993
Andy (Orlando Urdaneta) lives in Cuba, and would like to emigrate to the U.S. He has ideas about the prosperity of life there, and doesn't fully appreciate the pleasant life he has in Havana, where children are able safely to play on the street. By contrast, Ruben (Omar Moynello) lives in Union City, New Jersey, and thinks fondly of the old days in Cuba. His neighborhood is populated by druggies, thieves, transvestites, and every kind of lowlife imaginable. Also, it is very cold in New Jersey. One might imagine that it was a heavy-handed paean to the current regime in Cuba, and a critique of those who have left it, and of the U.S. To a certain extent it is, but in the eyes of at least one reviewer, the film also serves as a hymn to Cuba and Cuban-ness, no matter where its people live. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Orlando Urdaneta, Omar Moynella, (more)
Carlito's Way is a tale of a former hood trying to escape his former life. Al Pacino is Carlito Brigante, a high-level Puerto Rican drug dealer sprung from a three-decade jail sentence after only five years, thanks to a technicality and his sleazy, cocaine-addled lawyer, Dave Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). Carlito renounces his previous ways and takes a job as the manager of a club that Kleinfeld has invested in, planning to save enough money so that he can eventually move to the Caribbean. But no sooner is Carlito back on the streets of New York than his old life claws at him in the form of both old partners (Luis Guzman) and vicious up-and-comers (John Leguizamo). Nevertheless, Carlito stays clean and even restarts his relationship with a dancer named Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), until he is finally led astray by Kleinfeld, who manipulates Carlito into participating in the murder of a Mafia don from whom Kleinfeld has stolen a million dollars. At that point, the race is on to see whether Carlito and Gail can escape his world for good. The film is based on two novels about Carlito written by New York State judge Edwin Torres. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- 1988
In this story from playwright Jose Ignacio Cabrujas, Buey (Carlos Munoz) is a family patriarch whose lustful past weighs heavily on his conscience in this surrealistic comedy drama. He sets out to legitimize the various children he has sired over the years. Buey has a dream about a bishop acting as a swine shepherd and calls in a witch to interpret the dream. She declares it an omen of impending wealth, but tells Buey that the house must be purified with a ritualistic cleansing. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carlos Muñoz, Hilda Vera, (more)
- 1985
The changes in a nation over a ten-year period are implied in this undistinguished and confusing story of three university students, two women and one man, whose variations at love also change through the same decade. The title of the film suggests a consideration of what constitutes "male" or "female" and the possibility that one person could have a little of both. This is a theme that runs throughout the ten-year relationship, as many of the sexual activities of the three lie outside the accepted Venezuelan norms of the day. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Orlando Urdaneta, Elba Escobar, (more)
- 1977
The popular Latin American music used on its soundtrack enlivens El Pez Que Fuma, a drama which explores the seamy underworld of Caracas from the point of view of a brothel. In the pecking order of that world, the gaudily dressed mobster who is a frequent customer comes out on top, but a younger man seeks his place. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miguel Angel Landa, Orlando Urdaneta, (more)
- 1975
In 1964 a U.S. army colonel was kidnapped by a group of Venezuelan radicals who hoped to effect a prisoner exchange with a Vietnamese man who was sentenced to death for an assassination plot involving the U.S. Secretary of Defense. This political thriller follows the events and characters involved in that real-life episode. Especially interesting is the situation of a journalist, a member of the gang of kidnappers, who was assigned to cover the story. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Orlando Urdaneta
