Los marcados

This is one strange, disturbing film!

Part "El Topo," part Peckinpah, part "spaghetti western," this Mexican-made western is just a violent, perverse piece of work. It's the story of a savage gang, made up partly of a son and his stepfather and their crew of sadistic murderers. They have a compound out in the desert, with weird stone structures that resemble a sort of Mexican Stonehenge; but they also have a red-draped mirror and a water hole to bathe in . . . which they frequently do.(!) And the son fancies himself a Shakespearean actor, and when he performs out in the desert, all the members of the gang are required to pay attention and watch.(!)

On the trail of this gang (which features characters named "The Brown" (stepdad) and "The Kid" (the stepson)) is the man in black known as "The Marked" for the huge scar on his face. The members of a corrupt town hire "The Marked" to protect them from the gang. He is aided in this by a crippled gunman known as "one-Armed."

The film tries hard to make some weird connections between story elements and subthemes: family drama, homosexuality, Shakespeare, Western clichés, even religious overtones pop in and out. But although the film is never boring and often quite fascinating, the aforementioned elements never quite gel.

Much of the acting is very good, especially Flor Silvestre as "The Marked," Antonio Aguilar as "The Kid," and Flor Silvestre as The Kid's tormented mother (a madame in a whorehouse).

Stage blood is not spared in this epic. Nor is the violence, the torture, or the sadism. This Mexican western is not for everyone, but it is a very complex piece of work, for the most part directed in very interesting fashion by Alberto Marisal.