"Filme da Treta" is inspired in a previous work called "Conversa da Treta", which can be translated as "Blather" or "Foolish Talk". In fact it all begun with a radio show (with that name) where two friends, "Toni" and "Zezé", talk about their lives and their neighbourhood (located somewhere in a typical district of Lisbon!). Because of the colloquial and comic language it used to be funny. Then it passed to the stage (kind of a dialog play) and later to a TV-show. As you can see it was a success here in Portugal and the audiences applauded it… Now, the film! "Filme da Treta" is, then, just an adaptation to the movies of this succeeded show, but it was, at least in my point of view, a regression! To be honest it was a disappointment, as I expected a lot more from it. I used to appreciate "Conversa da Treta", but now with the movie it lost all the fun!
In Portugal, in the 60s, the corpse of a man appears on Dog's Beach. The corpse is identified as the major Dantas, a man wanted by authorities after his escape from a military prison where he was awaiting trial for insurrection.
Dona Elvira promises to get a job from José through the typical Portuguese wedge. In parallel, they are bizarre aspects and eccentric figures of the city life, including the tragedy of the actress Maria Alves.
While on his way to a picnic in Lisbon, Manuel stops to help two foreigners that had a car breakdown. With his tools, he retrieves a bag that contains... 200 thousand dollars worth of jewelery stolen by the two girls in Marbella.