Monos

A group of armed teenagers lives on an isolated mountaintop somewhere in Latin America, far from any adult world. They carry code names and answer to an organization that sends them orders. Their assignment is to guard an American woman they call Doctora and a milk cow. What begins as a kind of game among the young soldiers turns into something harsher as the group loses its footing, tensions rise, and survival becomes the only mission left.

Alejandro Landes Echavarría directed and co-wrote the film with Alexis Dos Santos, and also produced it. It was his second feature, following Porfirio. The cast includes Moisés Arias, Julianne Nicholson, Sofia Buenaventura, Karen Quintero, Julian Giraldo and Laura Castrillón, among others. Shot across several countries with a modest budget of about two million dollars, it went on to earn roughly the same amount worldwide.

On IMDb the film holds 6.8 out of 10 from about 20,000 votes, and on TMDB it sits at 6.6 from a little over 450 votes. Critics rated it considerably higher, at 8 out of 10 across 149 reviews, a gap that suggests reviewers responded to the film more strongly than general audiences did. It runs 103 minutes and blends adventure, crime, drama, thriller and war elements.