There are thumping beats, whizzing bullets, and the thrill of playing with fire in co-writer/director Francisco Ordonez’s The Sweetest Kill, the story of a money launderer who pulls a fast one on her drug dealer boss despite the consequences it might have for everyone around her.
Raquel (Sofia Yepes) is a former Marine who hopes to make it big with her music, toiling away producing beats that Efraim (Rene Rosado) raps over. For now, they both work for local drug lord Uly (Eddie Martinez) and despite her risqué day job, Raquel has a pretty mundane and contented home life with her partner Giselle (Ser Anzoategui), a down-to-earth nurse. Then trouble walks into Raquel’s life in the shape of Veronica (Sidney Flanigan) and the two start a whirlwind affair. Adultery invites even greater sins when Veronica admits to owing some bad men money, and Raquel decides to steal from Uly to pay off Veronica’s debts.
“… a money launderer who pulls a fast one on her drug dealer boss …”
What follows is a taut thriller where Raquel tries to stay one step ahead and delude everyone in her life, no mean feat as the list of wronged parties grows. These types of movies evoke that feeling of stumbling along at speed: are you going to be able to right yourself, or does this end in a faceplant? It’s a gripping couple of seconds while you find out, and with The Sweetest Kill, Ordonez manages to stretch that feeling for the duration of a feature film.
Crime thrillers set in Los Angeles have never been in short supply, especially not those involving strong, silent type protagonists and femme fatales, but The Sweetest Kill adds a splash of color with its LGBTQ+ representation. I wish more was made of this, because Raquel’s sexual orientation and background in a world of drugs, violence, and unstable men offers a lot of unexplored terrain, but Ordonez and co-writer Yepes stay put, and the movie plays out much the same way as it would if Raquel had instead been called Ray and her character was a standard issue white man. Missed opportunity!
Between infidelity, double-crosses, and moral struggles, there’s a lot for Ordonez to keep track of with The Sweetest Kill and it threatens to come apart at the seems at times, but he ultimately manages to keep it together and deliver a twisty thriller that offers a slightly new take on a well-worn genre.
"…a twisty thriller that offers a new take on a well-worn genre"
