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Review

In a stunning feature-film debut, director Iñárritu (a veteran of Mexican television) finds himself in the realm of Tarantino and Altman, but adding his own distinctive flavor to a provocative story of crime, betrayal, murder, seduction and unlikely redemption set in the slums and high-rises of Mexico City. Using a car crash as a focal point, the director and writer Guillermo Arriaga have several stories intersect before and after the accident, making optimum use of flashbacks and other non-linear editing techniques. Among a handful of characters in need of amore are: brothers Ramiro (a churlish petty crook) and Octavio (a dogfighter aching for his brother's wife); Valeria, a beautiful, shallow model having an affair with a married man; and El Chivo, a former revolutionary-turned-hit man who wants to reconcile with his estranged daughter. How these lives crisscross, and what the characters must endure, forms the core of this demanding, intense, often spellbinding drama that is the cinematic equivalent of a knockout punch. (Spanish with English subtitles)