‘10 Kilos’ Gets Weighed Down by Familiar Genre Fare

Doron Eran’s “10 Kilos” is based on a memoir by Sharon Yitzhaki that came with a more fulsome title, “10 Kilos Of Cocaine — How I Survived 4 Years in the Toughest Women’s Prison in the World.” The book cover features a photo of Ms. Yitzhaki’s back and a sprawling Hiroshige-like image tattooed upon it. As seen in publicity photos, the image appears to wrap around the author’s shoulders stopping just short of covering her entire torso. She’s comely, Ms. Yitzhaki, and the tattoo is elegant.All of which bears recounting given the significance of the tattoo in Ms Yitzhaki’s life and, correspondingly, Mr. Eran’s movie. A specific tattoo serves as a mark of authority in the context of the Miraflores Women’s Penitentiary Center located at La Paz, Bolivia. The facility returned to the news last year when Bolivia’s former interim president, Jeanine Áñez, sentenced in 2022 to ten years for breach of duties and resolutions contrary to the constitution, was released after the country’s Supreme Court annulled her conviction. She had spent more than four years in custody.How many years the cinematic Sharon will spend in Miraflores is among the nubs of a screenplay adapted from Ms. Yitzhaki’s book by Mr. Eran, Omri Rose, and the author herself. The casting of Israeli actress Daniella Kertesz — you may remember her as a temperamental art dealer in the television drama “Shtisel” — is on the money. She’s equal parts sinew and finesse with a rangy physicality that suits a character whose wherewithal undergoes myriad and dangerous challenges. However much Sharon is put through the narrative wringer, Ms. Kertesz’s intelligence as an actress shines through.So how did an otherwise law-abiding citizen like Sharon end up in the clink? Through circumstances that she mistook for love and others saw as an opportunity to make a buck. Escaping from a chaotic family life in Israel, Sharon travels abroad and hooks up with a handsome young man of indeterminate vocation, Roni (Tom Graziani). When their adventures take them to a hotel in La Paz, Roni pops out for an emergency meeting with a business partner. He never returns. Instead, the police barge in along with a flurry of press photographers. Sharon is summarily arrested for possession of $14-million worth of cocaine, that is to say, ten kilos. She’s hastily commuted before a bunch of shady law enforcement officials, including a mangy DEA agent, and is shipped off to Miraflores. A range of indignities are foisted on her upon her arrival, but Sharon does find a sense of solace, if not always safety, with her cellmates, a transsexual, Terry (Leeoz Levy), and a junkie, Diane (Maya Eshet).Given that Sharon’s case is a cause célèbre, she’s approached by a lawyer, Angel Rodriguez (Eyal Rozales), whose firm is willing to take on the case pro bono. How angelic this shambling hulk of a lawman might be is something to worry about, as is almost everyone in the near vicinity: The cartel has its hands in many pockets. The competing gangs within Miraflores hold more power than their jailers, and Sharon yields to the most powerful of them, eventually becoming an in-house commandante and on-leave private consort for a drug kingpin, Amadeo de Soto (Juan Pablo Olyslager).A lot happens during the course of two hours and it speaks to the commonalities of prison experience or, more likely, its cinematic equivalent that “10 Kilos” trades in archetypes and situations that will strike movie-goers as pulpy ground that has been well trod-upon. As it is, Mr. Eran isn’t quite in sync with the dramatic arcs of the story, favoring a slow-moving observational approach that, in the end, denudes the picture of suspense and tension. That the screenplay is rife with exposition and hoary poetic turns doesn’t help. By the time “10 Kilos” wraps up with photos of the real-life players, we’re left wondering if a feet-on-the-ground documentary wouldn’t have hit harder. Miraflores looks to be an amazingly awful place that bears further investigation. In the meantime, Ms. Yitzhaki moves forward in life 10 kilos lighter.

‘10 Kilos’ Gets Weighed Down by Familiar Genre Fare

‘10 Kilos’ Gets Weighed Down by Familiar Genre Fare

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