Airbag (film)

Airbag is a 1997 Spanish action comedy film, written and directed by Juanma Bajo Ulloa. It stars Fernando Guillén Cuervo, who co-wrote the film's screenplay with Bajo, Maria de Medeiros and Javier Bardem. Also stars unknown actors as Karra Elejalde and Manuel Manquiña, and Spanish celebrities as Francisco Rabal, Rosa Maria Sardà, Rossy de Palma, Santiago Segura, Alaska and Karlos Arguiñano.

Plot
Juantxo is a rich, barely out of school lawyer, who has proposed to the daughter of a rich socialite. While on a stag party with his two best friends, Konra and Pako, he accidentally loses his engagement ring while visiting a prostitute. After leaving the brothel, Juantxo realizes the ring is not on his finger and turns around to recover it only to find out her pimp has taken the ring. In order to find the ring, Juantxo and his friends go looking for Villambrosa, the pimp, at another brothel he owns. While there, Juantxo, Konra and Pako get mistaken for a band of drug couriers that are moving cocaine hidden in car airbags for Souza, another pimp/drug dealer that has a tense business relation with Villambrosa. While there the money and drug exchange goes wrong without notice which sparks a war between the two rival organizations.The friends move on to the next brothel in search of Villambrosa when they get pullover by a cop for speeding and while they are being interrogated, the car’s airbags deploy and explode releasing the cocaine inside the car. From then on the friends embark on a crazy drug induced journey to recoup the ring while being oblivious of the drug war they have accidentally created.

Reception
The film was hugely successful in Spain, grossing $609,312 in its first week of release from 131 screens and was in the top 10 for 19 weeks. It was the highest-grossing Spanish film of the year with a gross of 1,152 million Spanish Pesetas.

Submissions

 * Goya Awards
 * Best New Actor for Manuel Manquiña (nominated)
 * British Independent Film Awards
 * Best Foreign Independent Film (nominated)