THE BODY

(A.k.a. EL CUERPO)

"Every death's a homicide until proven otherwise".

Ragged detective Jaime (Jose Coronado) returns from a trip to Berlin where he's been visiting his estranged daughter, and is thrown straight into a most curious case.

His police colleagues usher him to a local hospital where a night guard at the nearby morgue lies in a coma, having been struck down by a hit-and-run driver. It transpires that the guard, Angel (Miguel Gelabert) was fleeing from the morgue in fear when the car hit him.

What was he fleeing from, precisely? Although all but one of the morgue's security cameras had been disabled, one fact is irrefutable: a body has disappeared. The wayward corpse belongs to pharmaceutical mogul Mayka (Belen Rueda), who was pronounced dead from a heart attack earlier that day.

Jaime's first port of a call is Alex (Hugo Silva), Mayka's grieving widower. Although, when he's brought in for questioning, he doesn't seem too concerned by the fact that his wife's died a few hours earlier. Perhaps he's more concerned with keeping the murder plot he and his mistress concocted against his wife a secret...

Either way, Jaime isn't happy with Alex's cool exterior. After all, his own wife died several years earlier: he knows how devastated his suspect SHOULD be at this moment in time.

While the cops leave him to brood, Alex rings his mistress Carla (Aura Garrido) - a trainee nurse - and coaxes her into going to the local hospital, in the hope that she can be there when Angel awakes and find out first what happened to Mayka's corpse. Between them, they share a guilt that needs to remain concealed.

Meanwhile, Jaime looks for advice from his old friend, coroner Sylvia (Sylvia Aranda), who is disconcerted by the fact that Mayka's body has gone missing before she had the chance to perform an autopsy on it. The inference, she argues, is that the cardiac arrest could have been artificially induced - in which case, someone would've needed to steal the body before she had the opportunity to inspect it.

The only other explanation, Sylvia suggests, is that Mayka suffered from a rare form of catalepsy and was never actually dead...

I hope the above synopsis has sufficiently reeled you in, dear reader, because that's all I'm prepared to give away. Having sat through Brian De Palma's most disappointing return to twisty thrillers, PASSION, only a fortnight ago, it was a pleasure to bear witness to THE BODY.

From the producers of THE ORPHANAGE and JULIA'S EYES, and directed by Oriol Paolo - the writer of the latter - this is a far better proposition, in that it hooks the viewer with the simplest scenario within the first two minutes and never stops surprising from thereon in.

Production-wise, the film has that same stylistic look that many recent Spanish genre flicks do. You know, cool icy blues; mainstream-pleasing slickness; an almost arthouse reluctance to succumb to clich�d Hollywood-type set-pieces.

Performances appear to be excellent throughout. They add to the tension, which is really palpable on many an occasion due to the screenplay co-written by Paolo and Lara Sendim. The flashbacks showing the degeneration of Mayka and Alex's marriage are good insofar as they really highlight Rueda's ability to play against type.

Cynical viewers could argue that the plot twists and turns around a fundamentally simple premise so much that it gets a tad silly. Or that the almost constant music lends events an aura more commonly associated to ITV's mystery dramas. Yes, the ones that are currently sponsored by Viking River Cruises...

But when a film comes along that is this taut, so controlled and, well, cheekily entertaining, it's difficult to be overly critical of its flaws or excesses. Ride with it: it's an enjoyably over-the-top thriller with style to spare, and a knowing sense of playfulness towards its audience.

I had a lot of fun watching THE BODY.

This UK DVD from Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment presents THE BODY in a nice 16x9 format which honours its original 2.40:1 aspect framing. Colours are warm, blacks are deep and detail is agreeable.

The Spanish 2.0 stereo soundtrack is similarly problem-free. Optional English subtitles are in white with a black outline, ensuring they're easy to read at all times. I didn't spy any obvious typing errors in these.

An animated main menu page holds the attention, and also leads to a static scene-selection menu which allows access to THE BODY via 12 chapters.

Bonus features begin with the film's original 2-minute trailer, and a 1-minute alternate trailer which relies much less on snippets of dialogue.

A Making Of documentary is reasonably well produced. It mixes on-set footage with soundbites from principal cast and crew members, clocking in at 19 minutes in length.

"Behind the Scenes" is a 3-minute voyeuristic look at the shooting of one scene on set.

All extras come with optional English subtitles.

THE BODY reminded me of fare such as IDENTITY and, more obviously, JULIA'S EYES: perfectly competent, twisting thrillers that - for whatever reason - didn't quite manage to capture the imagination enough to garner a credible run at the cinema. As with those two films, I predict it'll find a decent-sized audience on home video. Like those films, it also flirts with horror than embraces it. That's an observation, not a criticism: I enjoyed it, and hope you will too.

Also available on blu-ray.

Review by Stuart Willis