Synopsis: "A Miami reporter travels to a small Ecuadorian village to cover a series of brutal murders and cover the most important story of his career, following the actions of a murderous madman dubbed the Monster of Babahoyo."

Cast: John Leguizamo, Leonor Watling, Jose Maria Yazpik, Gloria Leiton, Alfred Molina, and Damian Alcazar.

Writer/Director: Sebastian Cordero.

Producer: Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, and Jorge Vergara.

MPAA Rating: "R," for violence, a scene of sexuality, and language.

Running Time: 100 minutes.

Release Date: July 8, 2005 (Limited).

Studio: Palm Pictures.



This sounds interesting. I've always been a fan of Leguizamo. He's done bad movies, of course, but he's an energetic performer who I've always been interested by and with two great artists, Cuaron and del Toro, behind this, I'm sure it'll be a worthy film to see. I'll try and see it, but I don't expect strong box office.

Great. I love seeing Leguzamo trying dramatic roles, because people don't give him as much credit as an actor as he deserves. Furthermore, if its a murder mystery/suspense film, I am thrice over excited. This is my favorite genre, and I always loved detection as part of the way narratives unfold. Though its not nearly on the same line I'm sure, I did see a movie a long time ago with Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, and Bellucci's breakthrough about the murder of a young girl in (Panama I think it was). Hackman was the chief suspect, Bellucci played his trophy wife, and the entire movie unfolded as a sort of casual interrogation with flashbacks.

It wasn't spectacular, but it was still more interesting to me than alot of movies.

I fear the mass-murderer elemnt though, since it could quickly become more of a horror or action movie like From Hell or Bone Collector did. I actually like when there's more intrigue around solving the past murders than trying to anticipate the future one. Though if done well, even mass-muderer movies could be good.

Thanks for the heads-up. I'd never heard about this movie before.

Thats UNDER SUSPICION. I enjoyed it. A nice subtle mystery movie with three great actors.

Yeah, that was it. It was pretty decent from what I remember as far as storytelling. I thought the motive was a bit weak, but my memory might be failing me.


*spoilers*
I remember Hackman killed the girl because of his wife, the girl was a prostitue hmmm? The details are a bit sketchy for me.
*end spoilers*

But I hope this goes the similar route of being dialogue and visualy driven rather than having alot of "jump out of your chair" type stuff. I don't mind that, and thought Bone Collector movie was okay, but I'm in the mood for a really strong back story and a slow unfolding of information. Haven't been many good detective movies out in awhile.

I just saw this today. Paying in the indiest of indie theaters, which is more like an art museum/cafe with a thirty seat digital projector theater room upstairs. But from the posters on the walls in the cafe, they show a lot of good films - lotsa documentaries.

Anyway, it's definitely not the kinda film you fear, dolce. Much more dialogue/visual...but really, it deals with the reporter more than the mystery. Which isn't even really a mystery. I dunno what to really say with out giving too much away, but it ended up being quite different than I expected. It's interesting. It felt as though it had all been done before though. And, unless the story is a true one, the ending was kinda suck. Have you seen Salvador? It's been a while since I've seen it, but that's almost what this felt like...only dealing with a serial killer instead of...yknow...what Salvador dealt with. :o

Leguizamo was fantastic though, and a lot of the imagery was great. And besides the ending, which kinda turned me off a bit, the film was pretty engaging...except I had an old man's head in front of the subtitles, so I had to sit up pretty strait, which got a bit annoying after a while. And it only cost 3 bucks to get in. So pretty worthwhile I suppose.