“I Don’t Care How You Feel About Subtitles, Get Over It Because Séptimo Is Awesome!”

Paxti Amerzcua‘s Séptimo (otherwise known as The 7th Floor) is a frighteningly effective thriller about a lawyer named Sebastián (Recardo Darín) who stops by the apartment of Delia (Belén Rueda), his ex-wife, to pick up his two children.

She lives on the seventh floor, so he decides to take the elevator from her apartment, though his children, being children, wanted to take the stairs.

After a bit of convincing he decides to let them go, though when he arrives in the lobby they’re nowhere to be found.

So somewhere between the 7th floor and the lobby his children vanished, and the movie is spent documenting his efforts to track them down, though in the process he uncovers an almost unthinkable plot directed at him.

Séptimo reminded me a lot of Taken, except that instead of spending time with shoot-em-ups the movie instead revolves around a pretty clever–though remarkably mean-spirited, even beyond the kidnapping, that is–scheme that doesn’t come off as too far-fetched.

And for the most part the movie works really well, though its greatest weakness is that while Sebastián may apparently work for some pretty scummy clients, all that is shown is how much he cares for his children, which makes the plot directed at him seem really cruel, when he may in actuality deserve such treatment.

And Séptimo is entirely in Spanish, though don’t let a few subtitles stop you from watching a very effective thriller.  The music that plays over the end credits, by Roque Baños, is also particularly noteworthy.

Séptimo is currently on Netflix.