Iñárritu does Bardem. You’d figure the result would be good, but it’s not. It’s a messy, depressive and agonizing ride that never ends or goes anywhere. Gone are the interweaved plots that are Iñárritu’s signature, and instead we are left with a shaky disco mess of immigrants, petty crime and death, redeemable perhaps only by Bardem’s performance and the plastic boob-headed strippers. The chinless nose-monster that is supposed to be the female lead also gives it a train-wreck kind of quality that just makes you want to continue watching despite yourself. I do appreciate Iñárritu’s effort towards agony and desperation, but he has a long way to go before he can reach the apex of the genre that was perfected by the likes of Bergman and von Trier. Despite the cancer, dead immigrants, crime and crazy wife, I still feel like Bardem’s character hasn’t gone through enough, and his burden is somehow alleviated by living in Barcelona and the calm medditerranean waves (that in this case, carries floating chinese immigrant bodies, but is nevertheless calming). Not Iñárritu’s best work, but overall sufferable for all the foreign-film whores.