The film's nihilism serves as a metaphor for the merciless death pit of Mexico's drug war, but not much else.

Director Amat Escalante and his gifted cinematographer Lorenzo Hagerman have crafted a powerful film that feels and looks a lot like Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning Traffic.

Although it obviously is made with some skill, it also is unrelentingly dire.

Its crude approach to drug violence strikes me as inane, gratuitous, uselessly sensationalist. [Full review in Spanish]