The Last Circus

5/23/2024

**_Amusingly offbeat Spanish circus flick is overkill comic booky_** After a prologue during the Spanish Civil War, the time switches to 1973, Madrid, where a sad clown (Carlos Areces) joins a circus and an alluring trapeze artist catches his eye, but she’s abused by her beau, a supposedly happy clown (Antonio de la Torre). It can’t end well. A Spanish/French production (with English subtitles), "The Last Circus" (2010) smacks of a Tarantino flick if he did one about a circus and shot it in Spain. Unfortunately, it lacks his compelling dialogues. It’s reminiscent of "Santa Sangre" from two decades prior, just overblown and with a plot revolving around two characters locked in an epic struggle in which a lose-lose scenario is likely. As the story progresses, one of these characters