| Soñar no Cuesta Nada | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Rodrigo Triana |
| Produced by | Clara María Ochoa Dominguez |
| Screenplay by | Jörq Hiller |
| Starring | Diego Cadavid Juan Sebastian Aragón Manuel José Chávez Marlon Moreno Carolina Ramirez |
| Music by | Nicolás Uribe |
| Cinematography | Sergio Garcia |
| Editing by | Alberto Ponce |
| Release date(s) | August 11, 2006 |
| Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country | Colombia |
| Language | Spanish |
Soñar no Cuesta Nada (English: A ton of Luck) is a 2006 Colombian black comedy film directed by Rodrigo Triana. Based on a true story, the plot follows a group of anti-guerrilla soldiers, whose lives are turned upside down after finding $45 million hidden in the jungle.
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A handful of soldiers are faced with the ultimate temptation, which affects their ethical standards in different ways. Perlaza (Carlos Manuel Vesga), Lloreda (Diego Cadavid), Venegas (Juan Sebastian Aragon) and Porras (Manuel Jose Chaves) are four servicemen in the Colombian Army who are part of a counter-guerilla unit dedicated to ferreting out revolutionaries who have set up camp in the nation's jungles. Porras is married and a dedicated family man, while the others are single and like to party hard when they are not on duty.
While cleaning up after an ambush by guerillas, one of the soldiers makes a surprising discovery — several tubs buried in the jungle which hold $40 million in cash, hidden by drug kingpins in cahoots with the guerillas. While Porras predictably maintains they should leave the money alone and tell their commander Lizarazo (Marlon Moreno) about it, the others want to take the fortune for themselves. However, hiding $40 million from Lizarazo proves to be a difficult task, and spending the money without drawing attention to themselves is not much easier.
Based on a true story, Soñar No Cuesta Nada (aka A Ton Of Luck) was directed by Rodrigo Triana, an established name in Colombian television. The film was roughly based on actual events and became a major box-office attraction in Colombia. When the film was released its real-life counterparts were on trial, 50 out of the 150 soldiers who took a share of the money were caught.
Soñar No Cuesta Nada was Colombia's submission to the 79th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.[1][2]
Soñar No Cuesta Nada offers the age-old dilemma of what would you do if you found a bag of money. The issue here is that this drug money should have become property of the government and an entire battalion kept it for itself. The film portraits of what men would do if their wishes came true — and most of these dreams are pretty basic, as you would expect from a group of poor soldiers
Triana decided to treat this story in comedy mode rather than as a serious heist film, and he's certainly more talented at brushing the portrait of lovable but morally challenged figures and at filming the jungle than at staging action sequences. The result has a M.A.S.H feel and this popular piece of entertainment mostly works when you know it's based on something that actually happened; otherwise, it's too far-fetched for its own good.
Soñar No Cuesta Nada is available on DVD. Audio in Spanish, with English subtitles.
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