Our Lady of the Assassins

Story Line: Upon returning to his hometown of Medellin, Colombia, a writer (Jaramillo) meets and falls in love with a teenage gang member (Ballesteros). The two move in together, and the writer rapidly learns that his own jaded beliefs pale in comparison to the boy's dog-eat-dog attitude toward existence. The boy's days are numbered, though, since he has been sentenced to death by rival gang members and becomes the target of repeated public attacks.

Bottom Line: Offering a singularly bleak yet profoundly moving view of life in a lawless society, Our Lady of the Assassins constitutes a rebirth of sorts for wildly inconsistent filmmaker Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune, Desperate Characters) who hasn't tackled subject matter this edgy since his European work in the '70s. The film's shot-on-video status and melodramatic subject matter frequently give one the impression of watching a South American telenovela. However, incisive scripting by novelist Fernando Vallejo (who wrote the source novel) and an uncommonly excellent performance by Jaramillo more than compensate for the less-than-ideal visual quality. Recommend to renters of other top-notch Spanish-language fare, such as Pedro Almodovar's darkly humorous melodramas, Butterfly and the films of Luis Bunuel--whose classic Los Olvidados clearly supplied the blueprint for Our Lady. --Ed Grant