Four Against the World

This dazed Mexican-melodrama-cum-boozer-heist-noir cuts a dark swath over a border nominally dominated by the hardboiled likes of Chandler and Hammett. Employing many of the classic tropes of Mexican noir (blood-tainted money, hothouse betrayals, the entrapped yearnings of dark hearts), we follow the slow demise of a gang who hole up in an attic in the wake of a fatal robbery. Galindo liberally dashes in lashes of the smokiest amour mort, gradually whittling it down to an ill-fated if rapturous coupling of gangster’s moll and underling. Starring Leticia Palma and Víctor Parra.