"Amigo" takes place in 1900. Aguinaldo is "on the run," hiding from place to place while delivering messages to the guerilla fighters battling the U. S. military for Philippine independence. One such message is read by one of the men in service to Simon (Ronnie Lazaro). Sayles cross-cuts this with a similar military letter, this one read by Lt. Compton (an excellent Garret Dillahunt). At the order of Col. Hardacre (an underused, surprisingly one-note Chris Cooper), Lt. Compton and his men have taken over the village of San Isidro, freeing the Spanish captives held prisoner by the village's head man, Rafael, since its takeover by the Filipino guerilla army. Aguinaldo's letter tells the men that anyone helping the enemy will be seen as traitors and killed; Lt. Compton's letter says exactly the same thing. The message is the same, but the "enemy" is a matter of perception.
Juxtapositions like this occur frequently in "Amigo," and for the most part, they are quite effective. (Though one, comparing a military battle to a cockfight, had me asking the screen, "Seriously, John?") The amigo of the title, Rafael (Joel Torre, in the film's best performance), has his counterpart in his revolutionary brother, Simon, and Lt. Compton's eventual softening toward Rafael and the people of San Isidro is offset by Hardacre's coldness. Sayles splits time between Rafael, who understands his brother's stance but feels he must play along with the Americans for the safety of the villagers who see him as their advisor, and Rafael's son, who rejected his father's pacifist stance, running off to fight alongside his uncle. The people are devoutly Catholic courtesy of Spain, and the priest, though technically a prisoner, continues to hear their confessions and serves as an equally trusted advisor.
The priest, Padre Hidalgo (Yul Vazquez), is a wild card. His colonial ideas, inherited from his country of origin, uneasily co-exist with his spiritual duties. With the arrival of the Americans, he graduates from prisoner to Big Man On Campus. Understanding English, Spanish and Tagalog, Padre Hidalgo is a regular Rosetta Stone, translating (and not always accurately) what is said between the villagers and their American occupants. He takes great joy in sending the former BMOC, Rafael, to tend the fields as per Lt. Compton's orders, fields that belonged to Padre Hidalgo before Rafael arrived. Vazquez superbly walks a fine line in his performance. I wasn't sure whether to trust him, and some of his dialogue seemed to foreshadow that I should not. "Sometimes the moral path is not always the most obvious," he tells Lt. Compton. In explaining the San Isidro festival, which happens every year in the town, he tells Compton that it is "partly religious and partly profane, like so many things in this poor country." Including Padre Hidalgo.
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