EL BRUTO ***

"

El Bruto" is one of Luis Bunuel's least known films. It's a tawdry little melodrama which he made in Mexico in 1952. In America it would have been a B-Movie rotting away on the bottom half of a double-bill and yet it's quintessential mid-period Bunuel; dark, blackly funny and superbly played by Pedro Armendariz in the title role of a hired thug and Kathy Jurado as the bored, sexy spouse of his employer and from the moment she sets her eyes on him you can see exactly where this is going. It's certainly not as black as "Los Olvidados" but it takes a typically Bunuelian view of humanity, (in other words, a dim one), and there are no characters you can empathise with, except perhaps the daughter of the man Armendariz kills, maybe without meaning to, in an overextended show of force. It may not be a masterpiece but it is very powerful and a worthy addition to the Bunuel canon.