Ratas, ratones, rateros (1999)

This action film is about the protagonist being pursued and escaping inside a cemetery. The police and hitmen are looking for Ángel, an ex-convict who was convicted of robbery and plays the role of a hero fleeing after robbing politicians and the mafia. The politicians and the mafia are entangled with one another and are trying to settle scores before a group of thugs takes action against him. As he flees, Ángel draws everyone in his social and family circles into the situation through his cunning. The only one who ends up helping him is his cousin Salvador, a young man who is sympathetic toward Ángel and interested in the implausible life he leads. The film features dramatic scenes of violence, inappropriate language, sex, corruption, and drugs. Ángel’s life, portrayed by Carlos Valencia, and Salvador, portrayed by Marcos Bustos, show—in a comic, dramatic, and violent way—the urban conditions of hitmen, drug dealers, criminals, gang members, prostitutes, and at-risk young people who grew up in the cities of Ecuador’s coastal region. As a depiction of poverty, crime, and corruption, the film presents the criminal as a man who escapes death by the skin of his teeth, and shows how everything he desires leads him into a spiral of crime, without regard for collateral damage or the reality of social vulnerability. The film inspires rebellion, violence, and cunning in a context of crime and violence.