Heli review

In the mood for something bracing? Amat Escalante’s film is the one for you. An uncompromising, brutal tale from the front line of Mexico’s drug war, it follows the eponymous factory worker (Armando Espitia) as he attempts to tidy up his sister’s lover’s (Juan Eduardo Palacios) impetuous theft from some local heavies.

With a central real-time torture sequence that has the hardest of cores, it sometimes feels like brutality for the sake of it. There again, the subject matter hardly lends itself to a jaunty romcom, and there’s much to admire in Escalante’s verve and daring.