‘Roosters,’ Compelling ‘Brother’ at AFI Fest

Among the key AFI Film Festival offerings not already reviewed during the opening weekend at the Monica 4-Plex are Robert M. Young’s flawed but admirably venturesome “Roosters” (Saturday at 3:50 and 9:40 p.m.) and Mariano Barroso’s absorbing, stylish suspense drama “My Soul Brother” (Saturday at 9:10 p.m.).

“Roosters,” written by Milcha Sanchez-Scott, is an instance of the right material in the wrong medium. It’s a highly theatrical allegory with numerous verbal flights of poetic fancy that cries for the proscenium. The story’s ultra-realistic setting, a modest dwelling in the sun-parched rural Southwest, keeps reminding us that people don’t talk that way in real life. (On screen it probably would have worked better filmed against stylized sets.)

At heart it’s a power struggle, illuminating what it means to be a man, between a young Chicano (Danny Nucci) and his father (Edward James Olmos), who has just finished a seven-year stretch for manslaughter. Olmos wants to immediately resume cockfighting, which got him into trouble in the first place, but his son is searching for a way out toward a better life.

In the “My Soul Brother’s” succinct prologue, shot in black-and-white, a young woman, Julia (Lydia Bosch), jilts Toni (Juanjo Puigcorse) for his brother Carlos (Carlos Hipolito); 10 years pass, and we find Julia, a flight attendant, and Carlos, an insurance salesman with a bright future, living happily together. Out of the blue, Toni, a virile, reckless type, shows up to turn their lives upside down.

Barroso, an AFI, USC and Sundance alumnus, begins in a low key and, as Toni insinuates himself into his younger brother’s life, masterfully revs up the tension so slowly you barely notice. This Spanish film proceeds with assured psychological validity: You understand why Julia can be both attracted to and repelled by the uninhibited Toni, so compellingly played by Puigcorse--and why Carlos is so vulnerable to his elder brother’s manipulations.

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