By J. Oliveira | Retrospective Cinema
By the final showdown, as the sun rises (the same sunset stock footage from A Grande Família ), Tostão throws The Gringo into a swimming pool full of piranhas that were never foreshadowed. He finds the lottery ticket, now dissolved into pulp in his pocket. He sighs. The parrot, revealed to be an undercover police informant (don’t ask), gives him a thumbs up with its wing. DURO DE MATAR- UM BOM DIA PARA MORRER
The soundtrack is a loop of one forgotten 80s samba-rock riff and the sound of a car horn honking for 15 seconds. He sighs
What follows is 78 minutes of pure, unadulterated chaos. The film never leaves the motel grounds. The action is staged with the reckless charm of men who learned karate from a VHS tape of Bloodsport . In one iconic sequence, Tostão fights a henchman using only a box of stale Sonho de Valsa chocolates and a broken mop. In another, he slides down a bannister while firing a .38 that runs out of bullets after the first shot—he spends the rest of the scene making pew pew sounds with his mouth. The editor kept it. What follows is 78 minutes of pure, unadulterated chaos
Duro de Matar: Um Bom Dia para Morrer is not a good movie. It is a sacred text. It captures a specific moment in Brazilian genre cinema where budget was zero, ambition was infinite, and logic was the first victim. It is a wonderful bad morning to die, but a hilarious afternoon to watch.