Ma’ Rosa has four children. She owns a small convenience store in a poor section of Manila where everybody knows her. To make ends meet, Rosa and her husband, Nestor, resell small amounts of narcotics on the side. One day, they get arrested. Rosa’s children are ready to do anything to buy their parents’ freedom from the corrupt police.
Boasting a simple, coherent plot shot with real-time, handheld verismo, it's a work of understated confidence ...
– Maggie Lee,
Variety,
18 May 2016
rotten:
Even Tangerine, the movie famously shot on an iPhone 5s, looks better. Not that a sharper image would much improve this chaotic portrait of police corruption.
– Mike D'Angelo,
AV Club,
19 May 2016
fresh:
There's nothing profoundly original here, but there's no denying the atmosphere of squalid authenticity.