Alejandro is a pilot for the Argentine airlines. He likes his job and, to keep him, he has told a little (or maybe a big) lie about his health. Since liars have very short legs, Alejandro gets caught. But they don’t fire him. They force him to get involved in a criminal plot, turning him into his courier.
The pilot will have to take packages out of the country and deliver them in Spain. It doesn’t seem that difficult, but Alejandro, played by Guillermo Francella, soon feels trapped in his lie. La extorción, directed by Martino Zaidelis, was the highest-grossing film in Argentina last year. Its director stopped by the Sitges Festival in October to present it and there he had a talk with La Vanguardia.
“I have always been interested in the world of spies, intelligence services and airplanes. So I imagined what an Argentine 007 would be like and from there came The Extortion,” says Zaidelis. That Argentine 007 is nothing more than an ordinary guy “with a lot of experience as a pilot and who, in the final stage of his career, has the misfortune of being approached by a guy who almost causes him to lose everything he has.” ”.
That dark guy is Pablo Rago who “plays the villain of the film, although he doesn’t seem like it. Rago has played an evil guy who generates confidence in the protagonist, who seems like a friend who wants to help him, although in reality he is not.”
The extortion began “as a comedy, with a protagonist, Francella, who is a great comedian, then it went to the thriller and then returned to the comedy, so I think it is a film that can be enjoyed from the intrigue that keeps you in suspense , but it is also funny,” adds the director.
What Zaidelis did not intend was to make a social complaint, but he could not avoid it, because after The Extortion there was a warning call against corruption. “Corruption is something very Argentine, but the truth is that it exists everywhere. Shortly after finishing the script, I read a news story that told of 500 American pilots who lied about their health to be able to continue working, to continue flying. Unfortunately, it is something very common,” he concludes.
