Based on a real story, the film is set in Bolivia, on the early sixties, when a band of thieves succeeds in stealing a large sum of money, by stopping the van that transports the payroll of a mining company and killing the it's employees. It's the biggest ransom ever collected in a robbery in Bolivia's history.
Two policemen are appointed to conduct the investigation: One, Adolfo, is brilliant, young, educated and a little bit naive. The other, Raul, is tough, experienced and crooked. Adolfo is a university student, Raul has learned everything he knows on the streets. The couple works hard but arrive at nothing. Soon Adolfo begins suspecting his comrade of involvement in the hold-up. A very tough battle develops between the two, and finally Adolfo, who keeps working on the case on his own for years, after being transferred to a different department, discovers the truth, but in the process, faced with the dangers of his trade and the harsh reality he is supposed to deal with (violence, torture, deceit, corruption and a dangerous woman) loses all his ideals and is left alone and with very little to console himself with.
The writers have translated the facts into a story with solid characters, and a plot that veers away only occasionally from the conventions of the genre. Still the background and the detailed plot keeps it very alive. The actors are all up to the task, specially Salvador del Solar, who proves once again that in these type of films, the baddie usually steals the show. Lucía Jiménez proves that, in addition to being a beautiful woman and an accomplished actress, she really can sing. I did enjoy particularly the moody soundtrack and the local atmosphere, so well portrayed.
A thriller, a film noir, in the same spirit as the classics, who takes place in a country and a time very far away from those depicted in them. As in Hammet's or Ellroy's tales, the story of a crime and the subsequent investigation serves to diagnose the deeper problems of a country and its people. In this case, the core of the story is the dilemmas that an honest man is bound to face in his life. In a corrupt world, a honest man s more dangerous to everybody, specially to himself, than a crook.
