Highly Overrated But Still Good

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Los Hongos is an interesting, honest and positive movie revolving around two teenagers growing up in the streets of Cali in Colombia but you can read all that in the synopsis.I had a good time watching it but it lacked a little something for me to really love it. The most important thing for me in a film is emotional impact and involvement which is not the strongest aspect of this work, not that it tries to be or pretend to deliver on it.I said the film was honest because that's how it felt to me. I could truly believe that the characters of this story were real and that everything that happened to them really did happen but ultimately, the lack of really fulfilling events, or deeply emotional scenes that is brilliantly characteristic of what this kinda lost youth is experiencing, caused me to not be able to get into the film as much as I would have wanted to.I think this film deserve a very high praise for its sincerity, its beautiful simplicity, its realistic and sometimes touching characters as well as its genuine rendition of a youth that I could totally relate to even though I live in a different continent. Even though I wasn't blown away by the film, I can say that I'm happy to have stumbled upon it and that I have a lot of respect for it.Final verdict: 7.5/10. This rating is not an attempt to evaluate the actual value of the film but merely reflects my own appreciation of it.

This is the story of two 20-something young men in Cali Columbia today. They are aspiring graffiti artists. I'd already watched a documentary about graffiti artists around the world--including Latin America--at a film festival a couple years ago. This movie is as real as a documentary but it is a drama. Days in the life of a couple of nice guys in sometimes friendly and sometimes dangerous world. I saw this at a university film series and there was a Columbian professor there giving an introduction and Q&A about this film. He was very excited about this film. And he also pointed out it's allusions to Columbian film history--which I know nothing about but found very interesting. Guess I can't come up with the right words to tell you what a great and fun and natural and affirming movie this is. It's about youth culture, but with characters who care deeply about their mothers and grandmothers. It's about street culture but not about drug dealers or gun battles. It even has a couple sex scenes it it, but these are more true to being young than to being hyped up wish-fulfillment. And--it is not a nostalgic or idealistic or condescending movie. It ends on a note of hope, humor and affirmation. I saw it with subtitles translating the Spanish dialog. RENT IT!