Elvira Onetto Movies

In the tradition of such films as Taxi Driver and Falling Down, Rodrigo Moreno's character study El Custodio meditates on deep-seated loneliness - the pain and alienation of being an outcast, a nobody - of being tagged as irrelevant. Julio Chavez is Ruben, the bodyguard to the Minister of National Planning (Osmar Nunez)). Ruben watches constantly from a distance as life (in the form of the Minister's activities) passes him by, but is never once allowed to participate. His life consists, exclusively, of constantly shadowing the Minister - in the limousine, in quiet conference rooms, in vacant hallways. Laconic, soft-spoken and introverted, his only external activity consists of occasional sketching in a notebook, and of tending to his mentally ill sister (Cristina Villamor). Inside, however, a quiet rage and a need for self-expression begins to build, that -- in the film's startling conclusion - pushes Ruben to the brink of explosion. Moreno shoots everything in the film from Ruben's point of view and relies heavily on lengthy, static takes to capture the monotony and emptiness of the bodyguard's life. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi