The destinies of several Mexico City residents intersect at the scene of a car crash in this visceral drama. Soulful Octavio (Bernal) falls in love with Susana (Bauche), who's married to his abusive brother Ramiro (Perez). Hoping to make some money he can use to spirit her away, Octavio enters Ramiro's pit bull, Cofi, in a dog fight, with violent consequences. Valeria (Toledo) is the model who loses a leg when Octavio's speeding car plows into her.... and a mysterious vagabond named El Chivo (Echevarria) is the accident's sole witness.

Bleak and brutal, Iñárritu's "Perros" — literally, "Love's a bitch" — takes Tarantino up a notch with a story of crime, betrayal, and abuse set in the rough-and-tumble slums and posh, sanitized condos of Mexico City. Filmed in grainy light to accentuate the hard edges of the story's interconnected plots, "Perros" is at once jolting and unsettling; the film opens with a tour-de-force car chase that not only rivals "The French Connection," but sets in place the tone and sense of desperation embodied in the film's other theme: the anguished nature of love.