Bad Day to Go Fishing

It's 1961 and there are strangers in the sleepy town of Santa Maria. There is Orsini, a cheap impresario and self-appointed Italian prince, and there is a former German wrestling champion named Jacob van Oppen. The two Europeans travel around fleecing local residents by rigging wrestling matches between paid-off local contenders and the champ. But they haven't reckoned with the bad luck that meets them in Santa Maria. Van Oppen is suffering from an existential crisis. He drinks and has sudden fits, and his strength has long since started to fail him. Not only that, the designated challenger boozes himself sick and can't compete. And there's a sharp local newspaper editor who's closing in on the scam. Nerves fry hotter than an egg on the pavement in the noon-day sun, and it looks like the boys might just have enough time to get out of town before the showdown. Or do they? A deliciously vintage movie in the cartoonish, deadpan style of the Coen brothers, BAD DAY TO GO FISHING features a shady performance by Scottish-Spanish actor Gary Piquer, a kind of Latin Harvey Keitel. (In Spanish with subtitles) – B.B.