If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

How sad is this?

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Blistering performances.

This movie follows a kidnapping in Columbia.If you want a look at Cartagena Columbia this movie has some value but as entertainment the movie has so many problems.First the good which is related to the bad....there is lots of effort at creative and interesting camera work: angles surprises etc which is really fun and beautiful at times but things like the ratatatat sequences of images becomes rapidly irritating and are done too much. Also I found the symbolism heavy handed or actually funny as right before the cop and his car get demolished and you see buzzards circling. All the religious imagery is excessive and kind of a turn off it lowers the intellectual bar a lot.The acting is so so at best...lots of pretty men and an ugly lead woman.The flashbacks are irritating and excessive disrupting the story and any kind of rapport you might feel for the characters exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to do. I laughed at the reviewer who said he expected to see a flashback of the soccer ball being manufactured. This flash back technique made the story very hard to follow. I didn't even realize it was the girlfriend who shot him I was so confused by the end of the movie. And when you can't follow you get bored fast.This movie could have been saved by lots and lots of editing and cutting out the flashbacks as the way of telling the story.I love Columbian movies for the scenery and the handsome actors but this one is a trial to get through.Although insignificant compared to the above problems... the subtitles are translated with artistic license e.g. gente innocente (innocent people) becomes "people caught in the crossfire"...and every other explicative is maricon (fag) which is never translated as that but rather "stupid" "idiot" etc... Although this is an improvement.'El Infierno' a Mexican social commentary dry comedy on this very same nightmare situation of social anarchy and killing from drug money is a far better movie. Watch it instead.DO NOT RECOMMEND

The Colombian Jose Gutierrez (Roberto Urbina) leaves his girlfriend in USA and travels to Colombia to visit his parents Carlos (Tony Plana) and Marta Gutierrez (Alejandra Borrero). Jose meets his former passion, Luiza (America Ferrera), and they date and go to a night-club. Then Jose is abducted and a group asks for ransom to his father, who is the manager of a bank. The insurance company does not honor the contract and Carlos seeks the help of KNRC, a company specialized in abductions and ransoms, and with the powerful drug dealer Umberto Pompeo (Fernando Solórzano). A commando seeks the kidnappers while a carrier heads to the Buena Fortuna Street to deliver the ransom money. Will Jose Gutierrez be rescued on time?"Hacia la Oscuridad" is a film with a messy non-linear story with terrible camera work and edition. The plot has the intention to show how dangerous is the life in Colombia but neither the story nor the screenplay are good. The action of Luiza is absolutely unreasonable and incoherent giving a ridiculous twist in the plot. The car chase is awfully filmed and edited and the boring flashbacks break the tension of the lead story. My vote is three. Title (Brazil): "A Um Passo da Escuridão" ("At One Step from the Darkness")

This story is about a desperate situation: a beloved son has been kidnapped and faces execution unless his family can secure a ransom and deliver it on time. There are several other story lines interwoven, and all of them involve tragedy. The filmmaker involves the audience in the emotions that each of the characters is dealing with; we grow to care perhaps too much for the fate of each. I disagree that the ending is predictable. It shocked the hell out of me; I'm a happy ending kind of person, and this one definitely is not! Yet if one is drawn to a compelling story, beautifully executed, then I strongly recommend this film.

I rented this movie thinking it would be an action film that came out of the dark. I realized during the first few minutes that this wasn't going to be short. The movie contains flashbacks of the kidnapped man's life with his friends and family. There are also flashbacks of other people as well. Mostly flashbacks of the people who are looking for the guy. I thought the ending was predictable if you listen close to the bad guys words when the scene of the kidnapping is giving. I didn't enjoy this movie because it was missing something. That something may be some details that are needed and some details that should have been kept in the dark! If u enjoy really boring movies that have the same ending that every other movie of the same category has now a days then rent this or buy this but in my opinion I would rather not see this again. It's not even a movie that I would see if I could go back through time.