Immediately following the accidental shooting of a young bird watcher mistaken for a deer, the phrase “Weeks earlier” appears onscreen to transition the story into flashback. It’s a rare moment of orthodoxy in a film that does its best to turn aside convention. Neither whodunit — there’s nothing mysterious about the source of the stray bullet, or the face of the young woman who can positively ID the gunman — nor set-’em-up-to-watch-’em-die, director and co-writer Sebastián Cordero (Cronicas) instead fashions a slatternly film noir thriller bound to put a crimp in the Ecuadorian tourist trade. It’s a sordid tale of power, profiteering, and treachery, all conspiring to bring an end to the lives of 250 squatters who have settled on a piece of land the shooter inherited from his father. Seeing it came as quite the pleasant shock, seeing how I tagged Cordero’s Europa Report the worst film of 2013. Right in both cases! (2016) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.