Nico and Dani

Yet the tension between the two charactors is real enough when it becomes clear Nico has other interests beyond his friend's attention- and his distractions are two very sweet girls- who can blame him!

If you have ever had a crush on another, but learned that they had other ideas, you may relate to this story. If you have ever went further sexually with a friend than you thought and regretted it afterward, you may also relate to the story.

Yet it isn't a story about regrets or unrealized love, but ultimately of a deep friendship developing dispite those themes.

I enjoy foreign movies- this one is subtitled in English only and so loses some impact, yet the two actors are appealing and Dani is particularly a challenging part to play but he does this well.

I also enjoyed the European tolerance of a gay lifestyle- even a Let Boys Be Boys kind of life from observing adults. Yet when the local "gay guy" connects to Dani, he is threatened to get turned in to the boy's dad by his good friend rather than corrupt the young man. That left me scratching my head in wonder- we are not talking 12 year olds but sixteen. Where is the line drawn?

Overall a fine sensitive movie without all the pro-gay preaching that distracts from the few films I have seen on the subject.


Great Film about young teens   December 18, 2001
Michael Layton (Palm Springs, CA United States)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

This film is about what two 15/16 year old males do when left to their own devices. This takes place in Spain and the twist is one of the boys begins to fall for the other. I could see an American version of this turning into American Pie 3 but not in this Spanish version. All aspects of the film are handled in a sensitive and realistic way. The natural awkwardness and shyness of the boys combined with their very childlike excitement of being on their own comes across as very natural. The young actors did a great job. This is a great buddy film and if you liked Wild reeds or Beautiful Thing you will like this film.


Bueno!   December 31, 2001
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

I try to see the majority of the gay themed movies that come out and I am usually disappointed with the poor quality. Fortunately, I did not feel this way about Nico and Dani. It's a charming, sensitive, realistic film which was very well done in all aspects.


Krampak   June 19, 2002
Prisa Mata (Barcelona, Spain)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Well, I just read the reviews above and I felt like having something to say.
I saw the movie when it opened here in Spain. It got me to think a little.
Most of the movies made in Spain don't get released on DVD in the U.S.A. And you could think that the ones that do are block busters or big budget productions. On the other side, Nico and Dani(Krampak is the original title) is a low budget movie that didn't break any records on ticket sales. It's a great movie, well shot and acted, and with a subtle and empathetic script. But I don't think that's the only reason why it's released in the States, I guess that it has been marketed as a gay movie and there's a big network of consumers for that. Well, I don't consider Nico and Dani a gay movie at all. It has a gay leading character, Fernando Ramallo, and a heterosexual one, Jordi Vilches, but I think the plot goes beyond sexual orientations, and I think that anyone that has been a teenager; homesexual or heterosexual, can relate to it.

I wonder if the same movie, made with the same excellence and quality, would have made it to international sales on DVD if it didn't have any gay carachter in it.
Is Cesc Gay's first movie, and only one to this day. It doesn't show. Right now he's on pre-production of a new film starring Eduard Fernandez and Vicenta'NDongo. Is also Jordi Vilches's first role on film. Before that, he did stage plays with experimental theatre company General Electrica. He's charming and unique. He's short and scrawny, but really beliavable as an object of desire. Fernando Ramallo has done several movies before this one, he's a famous spanish child actor, but I think this is the one where he does his best job.
I would say, to describe it fast and poorly, that this is a little bit like The Wonder Years with sex scenes.


oddly homophobic story of gay love   July 27, 2003
Nysocboy (Wisconsin)
6 out of 24 found this review helpful

Dani, who belongs to an affluent family somewhere on the southern coast of Spain, gets a summertime visit from his old friend Nico. They hit on some girls at Nico's insistence without giving up their old pastime of krampack. When Dani realizes that he is in love with Nico, he begins acting like an idiot: he grabs at Nico's privates when he is having sex with a girl, tells the girl that Nico is really a maricon, then pushes himself onto the local mature, sophisticated writer but runs out before they hit the bedroom.

What I find insulting about this film is that the boys never say the "gay" word, but they express their hatred of "maricones" quite often. I don't mind the director trying to pretend that gay history and culture don't exist, but it is offensive to tell a story about same-sex love that simulataneously preaches hatred of gay people.