Accion Mutante

Toronto International Film Festival Program Guide
1993

Accion Mutante
Alex de la Iglesia
Spain/France, 1993
95 minutes Colour/35mm
Production Company: El Deseo, S.A./CiBy 2000
Executive Producer: Agustin Almodóvar
Producer: Esther Garcia
Screenplay: Alex de la Iglesia, Jorge Guerricaechevarria
Cinematography: Carlos Gusi
Editor: Pablo Blanco
Art Director: Jose Luis Arrizabalaga
Costume Designer: Estibaliz Marquiegui
Music: Juan Carlos Cuello - ADV, Def con Dos, Maisa Hens, Pedro Sanchez, Anénimos
Principal Cast: Antonio Resines, Fédérique Feder, Alex Angulo, Juan Viadas, Saturnino Garcia, Fernando Guillén, Enrique San Francisco

Cyberpunk splatter meets Almodóvarian camp. The result is Alex de la Iglesia’s outrageous and charmingly vile thriller, Accion Mutante. At once skewering the Spanish bourgeoisie and finding a convenient excuse for blowing people’s heads off with elaborately constructed guns, de la Iglesia reclaims the dystopic epic as an ultra-fast-paced, blood-soaked merry dance through a not-so-distant future.

It’s the year 2012. Beauty and style have replaced justice and truth as society’s guiding principles. Only one group, Accion Mutante, a renegade group of genetic malformations and handicapped exiles, fights against the evil designer titans. Although quiet for some years, the group is planning its biggest action yet. Their leader, Ramon, is released from prison with a new master plan: they will kidnap Patricia Orujo, heir to a whole-wheat bread empire, on her wedding day. After a violent and bloody shootout, they manage to take Patricia captive and inform her family that a vast ransom must be delivered to the Lost Mine bar on the distant planet of Axturias. Tensions fray in the Accion Mutante spaceship and total civil war ensues, until the vessel crash lands in the harsh Axturias desert. As the various characters race to the legendary bar, only fate will determine who will live and who will die.

Made with the involvement of Pedro and Augustin Almodóvar, Accion Mutante shares their love of absurd humour and edgy gender politics. It is simply a wild, very funny sci-fi extravaganza, with spectacular costumes, unbelievable effects and the coolest six-shooter ever to grace the planet Earth.
—Noah Cowan