Argentine family’s deadly business

The family at the heart of the “The Clan,” a drama from Argentina, seems exemplary.

There are rooms in the house that are off limits, where terrified kidnapping victims are held prior to the payment of ransom.

Like this film’s patriarch, Arquímedes Puccio (impressively portrayed by Guillermo Francella), some of these criminals were ex-military types who relied on government connections.

For long stretches, Francella’s Arquímedes is admirable — handsome, a concerned husband, proud of his family while striking the right note of head-of-household dignity.

What makes this plot, said to be based on a true story, so horrifically fascinating is how Archimedes pulls his affable son, Alex (Peter Lanzini), a star rugby player, into the family business.

Trapero directs with a high level of energy, employing pop songs (including several Kinks’ numbers) to provide rueful commentary and making sure we never mistake the film for some sort of black-hearted family satire by rubbing our noses in the brutality of Arquímedes’ methods.

Rather, the mystery is in a series of questions about human nature that the movie succeeds in raising but declines to answer.