Dominican Republic / 2009 / 100 mins
Language: Spanish, English
Director: Josh Crook
Producers: Josh Crook, Manny Perez
Screenwriter: Manny Perez
Principal Cast: Manny Perez, Denise Quinones, Paul Calderon, Juan Fernandez
Genre: Action-Drama
SF Narrative
In a poor neighbourhood in Santiago, Dominican Republic, where the
streets are run by “boomerang” drug dealers, a modest butcher struggles
to raise his ten-year-old boy. After witnessing the murder of his father
by a vicious New York criminal named Rafa, Luisito meets General Colon,
head of the Dominican secret police. Colon preys on the boy's desire
for revenge, transforming him into a heartless killer. Twenty years
later, Luisito has risen to become Colon's top assassin, kept in control
by the general's promise to deliver his father's killer.
Into Luisito's hollow world comes Jenny, a childhood sweetheart.
Unaware of his occupation, Jenny falls again for Luisito, and the
tenderness she shows him rekindles his dormant conscience.
Recrimination, guilt and fury bubble up until he is forced to risk his
life in order to alter its path.
In
his first solo directorial effort, Josh Crook has worked cheek-by-jowl
with writer-actor-producer Manny Perez to create a work of such poetic
ferocity that much of its imagery will be stamped on the viewer
forever. Inspired by true events, and made on location in the Dominican
Republic for the price of a high-end German car, La Soga embodies
everything that independent filmmaking should be about: passion instead
of money, story instead of special effects, soul instead of spin.