Two sisters go out clubbing. In the loos, they drunkenly argue, and one of them storms out. When she wakes up the next morning, her sister’s bed is unslept in. So begins this slow-burn movie from Guatemala that’s not so much an out-and-out suspense thriller as a character study powered by an outstanding lead performance by Karen Martínez. She plays sensible, level-headed Sarita, whose party girl sister Bea (Pamela Martínez) vanishes. Sarita suspects Bea’s disappearance has something to do with the guy she’s been secretly dating. He’s mixed up in a drug gang.
When Sarita reports her sister missing at the local police station, the officer on the front desk barely looks up. Go home and pray, he tells her. Instead, Sarita infiltrates the gang that Bea’s boyfriend Andrés (Rudy Rodríguez) belongs to. The gang boss is the only proper adult in sight; the rest of them barely look old enough to shave. Cadejo Blanco director Justin Lerner spent a year casting non-professionals to play his gang members, and some of his first-time actors have former gang affiliations. They put in impressive performances and give the film a real human quality; gang life here is not all style and bravado; these kids are young and exploited. Their lives have no value, and they know it.
