Cronicas Movie Review

John Leguizamo stars in Crónicas, a journalism thriller set in Ecuador, where his big time reporter Manolo Bonilla searches the truth behind the "Monster of Babahoyo", a serial killer who kidnaps children and rapes them, before killing and burying them. Writer/Director Sebastian Cordero does a really great job showcasing the lives of the people of this very small town in South America where violence reigns the street and the police tries but can't do anything about it.

We know from the start who the killer is, so we then spend the whole movie with Manolo as he investigates after clues given by Vinicio Cepeda, a bibles salesman who is thrown in jail after a car accident where he ran over a kid. He says he's going to get killed in jail, so he tells Manolo what he knows about the Monster (he had an encounter with him in one of his travels around the country) in exchange for an interview to be shown in Manolo's popular show "Una Hora con la Verdad (An Hour with the Truth)", hosted by Victor (played by Alfred Molina), so that he can explain what happened in the accident, and gain the people's empathy which would make the police set him free.

There are great performances here from everyone involved, in particular Damian Alcazar playing Vinicio, who's beating to near death and then burned alive. Leonor Watling (previously seen in Hable con Ella) and José María Yazpik costar as Manolo's producer Marisa and cameraman Ivan respectively. She's also Victor's wife.
John Leguizamo does a really good despite uttering random lines in English when the everyone else is speaking Spanish and he's the only one that does that and without reason.

For the money he had, Ecuador's own Sebastian Cordero has made a really good movie. And even though the ending is not really satisfying after all the build up, the performances and realism of the story of Crónicas make for an intense thriller that sadly, is probably based on real events.

Review by Hakeem
MoviesOnline Critic