Blackmail Boy | Telescope Film
Blackmail Boy

Blackmail Boy (Οξυγόνο)

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  • Greece
  • 2003
  • · 100m

Directors Thanasis Papathanasiou, Michalis Reppas
Cast Nena Mendi, Maria Kavoyianni, Akilas Karazisis, Joyce Evidi, Alexis Georgoulis, Jeannie Papadopoulou
Genre Drama

In the small, closed community of a provincial town, Magda tries to maintain a balance within a family facing many serious problems. The families apparently normal, bourgeois, every-day life will crack open, bringing to the surface hatred and passions of the kind that lie well-hidden in the mists of the nearby lake. An intense plot and a totally unexpected ending make up this film, which features characters who are vulnerable, innocent and ordinary, but who become ruthless and callous, worrying only about protecting their financial resources. The offences are disproportionately serious compared to the financial benefits they try to secure

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What are critics saying?

50

The New York Times by Anita Gates

It does have the feel of farce at times, but much of the time it just seems determined to shock.

50

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

At the center of the movie, Tsimitselis makes for a disappointing blank, a pretty poster boy who leaves a long trail of emotional wreckage in his wake.

40

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Crust

Blackmail Boy reaches for tragedy but settles for soap opera.

38

New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman

There are moments of amusing melodrama, but for the most part, the action is too preposterous to take seriously, and too serious to be very much fun.

38

TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh

Black comedy requires perfect pitch: Pedro Almodovar has it and cowriters/directors Michalis Reppas and Thanasis Papathanasiou don't, at least by the evidence of this film.

30

L.A. Weekly by Ernest Hardy

It's a mean-spirited exercise in stilted outrageousness.

25

New York Post by V.A. Musetto

The Greeks have a word for Blackmail Boy: boring.

10

Village Voice by Melissa Anderson

Curiously, Blackmail Boy's alternate title is "Oxygen"--and by film's end, you'll be gasping for it.