Golden Balls Reviews

Quixotic Spanish director Bigas Luna can never be accused of thinking small, and in this film he unleashes his febrile imagination on a cautionary tale of phallic folly. Construction worker Benito Gonzalez (Javier Bardem) has a sexy stripper girlfriend, Rita (Elisa Tovati), but his dreams don't revolve around any woman: He's obsessed with the thought of building a giant skyscraper that he'll name after himself! When Rita skips town with his best buddy, Benito decides it's time to make his dream a reality, even though he has neither money nor architectural skills. He marries a banker's daughter, Marta (Maria de Medeiros), but also finds a new mistress named Claudia (Maribel Verdu), using the former for money and the latter for her social connections. When Claudia spills the beans to Marta, Benito proposes a threesome, reasoning that such an arrangement would keep everyone happy without cramping his ambitions. But Benito's unflappable self-confidence and inexhaustible sexual energy eventually lead to trouble: After a tiff with an American (Thomas Lusht) who has designs on Claudia, the jealous Benito crashes his car, killing Claudia and crippling himself. No longer irresistible to investors or women, Benito defaults on his loans, ruins his father-in-law's business and leaves his creditors in the lurch. The wheelchair-bound Benito moves to Miami, and finds a working girl to act as his caregiver. When Benito finds out that she's also sleeping with his neighbor, Bob (Benicio Del Toro), the onetime love machine must face the fact that he's an empty shell, like his unbuilt dream tower. Lunas' fable offers pre-stardom glimpses of Bardem and Del Toro, but his satirical tone seems strangely at odds with the film's judgmental glee when anti-hero Benito finally gets his comeuppance.