What do you get when you combine a luchador, a stolen kidney, and a horrible tattoo? The Lowlife trailer, of course

Last summer, we caught the world premiere of a brutally violent, yet frequently hilarious crime thriller at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, and said it “revives the post-Pulp Fiction boom of films with fractured timelines and multiple points of view revolving around a colorful crew of criminals, addicts, and ordinary people in way over their heads.” Later that year, we caught it again at Chicago’s Cinepocalypse festival, where we called it “a immensely crowd-pleasing black comedy set in the fleabag motels and greasy taco stands of working-class L.A.” That film is called Lowlife, and it’s now headed to theaters and VOD courtesy of IFC Midnight.

Fans of Quentin Tarantino’s early work, and of the glut of fast-talking imitators that emulated his style in the mid-to-late ‘90s, will find a lot to like about director Ryan Prows’ debut feature. But the most memorable thing about the film is its characters, including a standout performance from Nicki Micheaux as a morally compromised motel owner, Jon Oswald as the least racist guy ever forced to get a swastika face tattoo in prison, and Ricardo Zarate as El Monstruo, a luchador-turned bodyguard struggling to live up to his father’s heroic reputation.

In short, Lowlife updates Pulp Fiction for the Trump era—it even makes ICE agents the villains of the piece—and it’s coming to select theaters and VOD April 6.

 
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