This big budget Mexican crime drama is a good study of how familiar tropes can be used and infused with sufficient unpredictability to tell a gripping story – that of a fall of a needy man, his immersion into greed, violence and arrogance, and his gradual redemption in the brutal and unforgiving world of Mexican drug mafia. Boasting of a stellar ensemble cast – Damian Alcazar as the wasted son who returns from the US after twenty years is simply brilliant – the film adopts the tone of a black comedy to convey its theme of unapologetic lawlessness that pervades a corrupt nation on the cusp of celebrating its 200 years of independence.
EL INFIERNO (2010, Mexico) by Luis Estrada is playing on Netflix.
Ranjan Das is a Mumbai based filmmaker and faculty.
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