LOST IN THE NIGHT
Directed by Amat Escalante
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

THE search for a murdered political activist is the beginning premise of this Mexican drama – but film-maker Amat Escalante has so many things he wants to get off his chest he cannot help but meander off the plot path spectacularly.

Like a guide wanting to just show the viewer one more sight before we reach the destination, he takes us through a variety of discussion points, ranging from police corruption to inhumanity caused by greed.

An opening scene focuses on a Beetlejuice-looking pile, inhabited by a family not unlike the protagonists in the 1988 Tim Burton comedy, though wholly unintended.

Instead, this is meant to be a tale of corruption and criminality, an original take on the lawlessness of modern Mexico.

A public meeting where the arguments for and against a new mine opening on the doorstep of a dirt-poor country village are played out in a Ken Loach style. Afterwards, campaigners are pulled over by police officers, and bloody murder is committed.

Three years later, we meet Emiliano (Juan Trevino), the son of a victim. He stumbles across a cop’s deathbed confession, which suggests he might find his mother’s body in the grounds of a mansion. Emiliano visits the land, to discover oddball artist Rigo (Fernando Bonilla), who has built his Beetlejuice house with his pop singer wife Carmen (Bárbara Mori) and his social media star daughter Mónica (Ester Expósito).

Rigo has picked a fight through his art with a Christian cult, who have taken to poisoning his dogs and smashing his windows. When the chief of police (Jero Medina) arrives, it’s clear to Emiliano that Rigo and the law are one and the same. He gets a job as their handyman to investigate.

Escalante has dolloped on plot layers. It is a hotchpotch of ideas with the main narrative – what has happened to Emilianos mother? – forgotten for scenes, diluting dramatic tension. Emiliano’s grief, his mother’s murder, the vandalism of the environment, the absurdity of contemporary art, Narcos, how authority protects the rich at the expense of the poor: Escalante brings it all.

Beautifully made, with strong performances, it doesn’t fill a pigeonholed idea of what a thriller should be. Instead, it is quirky, original and sits on a strong political bedrock about power, wealth and who government agencies really work for.