2384. The Fury Of A Patient Man (2016)

Starring: Antonio de la Torre, Luis Callejo, Ruth Diaz

Director: Raúl Arévalo

Running Time: 92 mins

The Fury Of A Patient Man (Tarde para la ira) is a Spanish film about a man, recently released from prison, who is approached by another, but is unsure of the reasons why he has suddenly become involved in a complex series of events.

I wasn’t all that thrilled by this movie. While it tries to balance the darker, more exciting tension of a man on a slow but intense path to vengeance with a dramatic atmosphere that feels a whole lot more arthouse, The Fury Of A Patient Man really falls flat, with painfully slow pacing, less-than-stellar dialogue, and a general lack of the intensity you’d expect to see from such a story.

Before I get into that, however, let’s have a quick look at the positives from the movie, the biggest of which comes in the form of its central premise, and the immediate drama from the film’s opening act. While it’s not quite spectacularly exciting, the film opens with a dynamic and unpredictable getaway sequence, and it’s complemented a little later with a look at the event from a different perspective happening simultaneously, something that fosters good intrigue and the potential for drama right from the start.

However, things fall a little flat from there on in. Perhaps because the film gave me high expectations of riveting and intense drama from beginning to end, but also maybe due to the fact that the movie takes a frustrating turn down a quieter route that doesn’t allow the real drama to hit with full impact.

Of course, as the film suggest, The Fury Of A Patient Man isn’t going to be wall-to-wall excitement and action, and nor should it be, rather focusing on a rumbling tension and anger of a normal man close to breaking point. There are moments when that theme works well, but they’re unfortunately too few and far between, and as a result, the slower, quieter, and almost arthouse atmosphere that the film employs throughout is often too full of dull, empty periods.

If the film were more heavily focused on one character, rather than the three that form the central cast, then I feel that the development of that tension and anger could have been more consistent and more powerful. In the case of the movie, however, it relies more on thrilling bursts of fury, with the bits in between left a little too vacant.

On top of that, I wasn’t all that stunned by the film’s dialogue. As a slow and quiet film, there isn’t quite as much dialogue as you’d normally be accustomed to from big Hollywood revenger thrillers, and while that in itself isn’t a problem, it’s the fact that when there is dialogue, it fails to live up to the depth of drama that it’s trying to create.

As a result, those dull sequences in between the spectacular bursts of rage are worsened by clunky dialogue that just doesn’t ramp up the tension bubbling beneath the surface, instead sitting frustratingly content this far less impressive and less engrossing dialogue, doing irreversible damage to your intrigue over the course of the whole movie.

Overall, then, I wasn’t all that impressed by The Fury Of A Patient Man. It may have a good premise to start off with, as well as the odd burst of thrills to fulfil its potential, however the majority of the film is a frustratingly slow and ineffective affair, wasting time with a poorly-focused screenplay and dialogue that really takes away from the drama and tension it is trying to build throughout, and that’s why I’m giving it a 6.1.