Manos Sucias

Manos sucias ("Dirty Hands" in English) tells the story of two men from Buenaventura, Colombia and their descent into the dangerous world of drug trafficking. The two men must transport a massive amount of cocaine to Panama in a speedboat without getting caught. This isn't Narcos; this is a sobering depiction of the day-to-day risks real-life drug traffickers face and the trade's negative impact on Colombian society as a whole. While it is somewhat slow-paced in my opinion, it successfully tackles a serious problem to this day on the western coast of Colombia and throughout the country.

What stood out to me about Manos sucias is the creativity of these low-resource Colombians. The cocaine is transported in a submarine of sorts latched onto the boat. Attached to the submarine on the surface of the water is a pipe that looks like an unsuspicious floating piece of junk. Whenever the authorities come, the men simply unlatch the submarine from the boat, and later reattach it when the authorities leave by locating the pipe.

I would recommend this film to anyone looking for a more realistic take on the world of drug trafficking in Colombia. As can be seen in this film, it is not as glorious or glamorous as it's made out to be by many other movies or TV shows. I am not sure if this film has helped or hurt the image of the city of Buenaventura, but it has definitely opened my eyes to some of the problems it is currently facing. Truth be told, it is one of the more dangerous cities in Colombia, perhaps in all of Latin America, due to ongoing gang violence and guerilla/paramilitary activity, which of course is all intimately tied to the illegal drug trade. My biggest complaints are that at times the movie drags along, and it ends rather upruptly. I would love to see more movies like this pertaining to real-world problems that most people prefer to simply ignore, and I applaud director Josef Kubota Wladyka for making such a tasteful, insightful film about such a serious and sensitive subject. Not to undermine the actors, who all did a great job as well in spite of not being professional actors, which makes it feel all that much more authentic.

As a Colombian, I saw this movie with skepticism and enthusiasm. Because many other movies about the drug trade and the violence of my country never really tried to show, why this really happened? I mean, what are the motivations of an individual to deal with drugs? In the other hand "Dirty Hands" achieve to present what is going on, in the mind of a person that does such things without demonizing them. In the title of this review I put in the word "fine", the reason is that this film is not as violent as it could actually be ... as the ghettos of that city actually are. As said, it does not focus on the demons, it just explain, why a young man without an education start smuggling drugs, and director Kubota Wladyka do that from a very fine perspective.

Besides the sociological reasons to watch this movie, there are also musical reasons, and photographical ones. The music is the salsa and pacific rap written compose in Valle del Cauca, songs like "Buenaventura y Caney", are its soundtrack.

And you, the viewer will be able to watch the circumstances of a really poor city, which peoples potential and natural wealth has been wasted by corrupted politicians.

This movie is simply great. Perhaps I am biased, as I conduct research in epidemiology in the same geographic area in which this movie develops. I can attest that this movie is faithful to the complex social dynamics in the Colombian Pacific coast, and does so in a way that does not detract from the tragedy of their misery. "There are no black people in Bogota" is a sentence repeated several times in the movie, and it has a profound meaning: the disparity in development between rural and urban areas is enormous. Buenaventura, where the story begins, processes 70% of the cargo that enters Colombia, but this economic activity leaves very little behind. The lack of jobs, services, security, opportunities is inferred from this movie as the cause for the ordeal of the protagonists, but the movie avoids stereotypes and simplistic political interpretations. Character development is superb. Manos Sucias is a lesson in contemporary history.

While there have certainly been many films created over the last 3 decades dealing with the drug-smuggling trade, nothing comes close to this film in showing a day in the life of a "foot soldier". All too often, we see the almost glorified portrayals of the dealers (Scarface, Blow etc) becoming super-rich overnight. Yet this film gives us the point of view from one of the hundreds of thousands of small-time workers that comprise the drug-empires of today. It would be easy to demonize anyone working in the drug-trade, but this film takes the viewer into the motivations, mind-set and environments which entice or force everyday struggling people into this world. With incredible scenery, cultural symbolism and harsh reality throughout, "Manos Sucias" is most likely one of the best films I have seen that gives relevance and insight into how the drug-world operates and the impact it has on the people involved.