3 Best Movies to Watch by Jorge López

Staff & contributors

, 2022

Three kids from a poor neighborhood win scholarships to the best high-school in Spain and later find themselves at the center of a murder. There is a lot that comes to the surface from the working-class kids clashing with the wealthy. Themes of money, power, religion, and even sexuality make this show so compelling that I never felt like I needed a murder to keep watching.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery

Actor: Álvaro de Juana, Álvaro Rico, André Lamoglia, Aron Piper, Carla Díaz, Carmen Arrufat, Claudia Salas, Danna Paola, Diego Martín, Ester Exposito, Georgina Amorós, Georgina Amorós, Itzan Escamilla, Jaime Lorente, Jorge López, Jorge López, Manu Ríos, Maria Pedraza, Martina Cariddi, Miguel Bernardeau, Miguel Herran, Mina El Hammani, Omar Ayuso, Valentina Zenere

Rating: TV-MA

The filmmakers behind this direct sequel to the Indigenous action thriller Sayen clearly learned from the mistakes of that first film: all the emotion that was missing then finds a new home here, as the titular protagonist finally gets to grieve what she's lost, in a way that's touchingly close to her cultural beliefs. Desert Road also ups the action considerably, this time borrowing liberally from desert-set films like Mad Max—the sun-drenched expanses of sand are somehow much more beautiful than the forests of the first movie. And Rallen Montenegro continues to refine this character's emotional depth.

Still, partially as a result of the fact that the first installment gave this sequel little to work with, Desert Road can't help but feel more ordinary and more distant from real-world struggles touched upon previously. The actual thrills in this thriller plot aren't particularly intriguing, as several subplots mash together without as much effect on the main plot as intended. At the end of the day, this still seems like it's been made with the action movie template in mind first, rather than having the story and characters lead the style of the storytelling.

Genre: Action, Thriller

Actor: Alfredo Castro, Álvaro Espinoza, Camilo Arancibia, Claudio Riveros, Claudio Troncoso, Enrique Arce, Eyal Meyer, Felipe Contreras, Francisca Gavilán, Jorge López, Katalina Sanchez, Mario Bustos, Nicolás de Terán, Rallén Montenegro, Roberto García Ruiz, Teresa Ramos, Víctor Varela

Director: Alexander Witt