Film

The Fortress

Name: The Fortress
Genre: Comedy
Released: 2023
Cast: Fernando Cayo, Vito Sanz, José Manuel Poga, Goya Toledo, Carla Nieto

Dark comedy

A Spanish comedy about inheritance and family ambition that spirals into chaos when the patriarch's will comes with unexpected conditions. It's a game-show-meets-dark-comedy premise executed with broad strokes and pratfall energy. For fans of ensemble comedy who don't mind a familiar setup and don't need everything to land perfectly.

If you liked this

The In-Laws1979

Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in a masterclass of escalating chaos. Two families collide before a wedding and nothing goes as planned. The prototype for every inheritance-gone-wrong comedy.

But Shot in the '70s with the colour palette to match. Also aggressively plot-driven in ways that feel creaky now.

Inherent Vice2014

A stoner detective stumbles through inheritance, missing persons, and family corruption in 1970s LA. Paul Thomas Anderson's funniest film, genuinely weird, genuinely warm.

But Deliberately meandering and shapeless. If you need a clear plot, this will frustrate you for two hours.

The Whole Nine Yards2000

Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis sparring over a Montreal dentist with a mobster in the basement. Ensemble chaos, snappy dialogue, and real affection between characters underneath the scheme.

But A post-Friends action-comedy that lands uneasily between genres. Tonal whiplash from scene to scene.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Fortress

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Milky Way1969

Both films use inheritance and family as a canvas to explore what people want and what wanting makes them. The Fortress's game-show structure and The Milky Way's picaresque form are opposites, but both ask: how far will desperation carry us?

Luis Buñuel's surrealist masterpiece about two vagrants on a pilgrimage who encounter the past, the absurd, and the infinite. A comedy about ambition, faith, and human delusion shot as a dream. Revolutionary form, liberating wit.

But Black-and-white, subtitled, and deliberately anti-narrative. It plays by its own rules and won't explain them to you.

Bottle Rocket1996

Wes Anderson's debut about two small-time grifters with a shared fantasy of crime. Deadpan, tender, funny in the spaces between scenes. A film about ambition masquerading as incompetence.

But Sparse and deliberately anti-comedic in delivery. You have to want to lean in; it won't meet you halfway.

Four Rooms1995

Ensemble comedy trapped in a hotel on New Year's Eve with escalating demands and collapsing sanity. Tom Waits, Madonna, Tim Roth, chaos. Pure game-show energy without the plot.

But Dated '90s indie affectation and an uneven tone. Some segments are funnier than others and it feels it.

Eating Raoul1982

A deeply perverse married couple kill swingers for profit and tumble into unexpected moral complexity. Jet-black comedy that finds pathos in the weird and ambitious.

But The premise is deliberately ugly and the execution is deliberately low-budget. Not for viewers who need their comedy palatable.

A Fish Called Wanda1988

Con artists, a heist, dogs, attempted murder, and a lawyer having a mental breakdown. Ensemble crime-comedy with actual character development and genuine stakes.

But A 1988 view of sexuality and language that has aged badly in places. The pacing drags in the middle.

The Wolf of Wall Street2013

Scorsese's three-hour riot about ambition, excess, and men who refuse to fail. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in counterpoint. Formally inventive and genuinely funny.

But Relentlessly cynical and graphically depraved. If you're tired of celebrating disaster, this will exhaust you.

After Yang2022

Both explore inheritance and ownership—what passes from one person to the next, what's real and what's performed. The Fortress yells; this one whispers the same question.

A father grieves an android child who was his family member. Kogonada's quiet sci-fi meditation on what belongs to whom, who we keep, what we own. Formally elegant, deeply human, and unexpectedly funny.

But Slow, contemplative, almost silent. The opposite of broad comedy. You need to be okay with watching someone think.

The Celebration1998

Both use a family gathering and a game (or confrontation) to expose what's hidden. But where The Fortress plays it light, Festen goes to the bone. The connection is structural, not tonal—same skeleton, different flesh.

A Danish family reunion explodes when the son reveals the patriarch's abuse. Dogme 95 provocation that is furious, darkly funny, and structurally ingenious. A family gathering that unmasks everything.

But Handheld video, poor image quality by design, and a tone that swings between farce and trauma without warning. Deliberately harsh and unsettling.