Nicotina, directed by Hugo Rodríguez, is a dark comedy that deals with ninety minutes of naughty residents and petty criminals during a warm night in México City. Various actors smoke or refrain from smoking, with amusing or often tragic consequences. Starting out as the unconnected stories of five groups of persons, they eventually come together. We view a husband-wife barbershop, a Russian playing computer games in a hotel with his bearded partner, two men driving down a street in an SUV, a drugstore in the process of closing for the night, and a female who likes to sleep with as many men as possible. The two men in the SUV, Nene (played by Lucas Crespi) and Tomson (played by Jesús Ochoa), are driving to collect computer hacker Lolo (played by Diego Luna) so that they can obtain oodles of cash from the Russians in exchange for a computer disk that reveals the code of a Swiss bank. However, sexually active Andrea (played by María Beláustegui) discovers that Lolo is spying on her, so she destroys his computer disks. When the trio meets the Russians, Lolo has the wrong disk, so they infer a doublecross. Guns are drawn, shots are fired, and Nene and the Russians are shot; police then go to the scene, presumably alerted by the sound of gunfire. Carrying a briefcase with cash, the bearded Russian runs down the street to evade the pursuing trio, ducks into the barbershop, demands to have his beard shaved, cellphones something about diamonds in his belly, but soon dies in a barberchair. Carmen (played by Rosa María Bianchi) pulls out the Russian's gun, orders fellow barber Goyo (played by Rafael Inclán) to dig the diamonds from the Russian's belly with a razor. However, a police officer pops into the shop to get a quick trim, discovers blood oozing out of the Russian, and the wife shoots him dead. Meanwhile, wounded Nene goes into the drugstore to demand that his wounds be patched up, but he gets caught up in a clash between pharmacist Beto (played by Daniel Giménez Cacho) and his spouse Clara (played by Carmen Madrid). The police tidy up the messes to finish the story, which has subplots involving sexual desires and failed relationships. Indulging the nicotine habit provides the only relief from stress for many of the characters, while others are trying valiantly to go cold turkey, but ultimately the carelessness of a cigarette smoker does him in. The Mexican film seems to suggest that life is chaotic, frustrating, and often nasty, but with plenty of the unexpected. MH
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