Name: The Devil Never Sleeps (El diablo nunca duerme)
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2012-06-22T03:30:10-07:00
Rating: 80

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The Devil Never Sleeps Photos

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Movie Info

The Devil Never Sleeps is a "whodunit" documentary about family secrets. Filmmaker Lourdes Portillo received a phone call informing her of the mysterious death of her wealthy Mexican uncle Oscar. Officially ruled a suicide, Portillo's relatives claimed murder, offering several possible suspects including a business partner, a ranch hand, and Oscar's young widow who stood to inherit everything. Traveling to Mexico, Portillo attempts to learn the truth about her powerful uncle. Using interviews, old snapshots and home movies, she finds a complicated web of family secrets, intrigue, rumor and betrayal that makes her enigmatic uncle's murder seem ever more likely, yet ever more obscure. As the Mexican saying goes, "When evil is lurking, the devil never sleeps."

Genre:

documentary, mystery and thriller
Original Language:

Spanish
Director:

Lourdes Portillo
Producer:

Lourdes Portillo, Michelle Valladares
Writer:

Lourdes Portillo
Runtime:

1h 27m

Cast & Crew

Lourdes Portillo
Director

Lourdes Portillo
Screenwriter

Lourdes Portillo
Producer

Michelle Valladares
Producer

Mark Adler
Original Music

Lola Beltrán
Original Music

Show all Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for The Devil Never Sleeps

All Critics (5) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (4) | Rotten (1)

Although the concept is promising, the movie's conclusions are too vague and scattered for her spadework to dig up a compelling drama.

December 15, 2020 | Full Review…

Stephen Holden
New York Times
The Devil Never Sleeps is mildly entertaining, particularly in the sections that try to make sense of the radically contradictory accounts of the same events or issues given by different members of Oscar's family.

December 15, 2020 | Full Review…

Emanuel Levy
Variety
[Director Lourdes Portillo] deploys an imaginative range of techniques and allusions to illuminate the investigation.

December 15, 2020 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Desmond Ryan
Philadelphia Inquirer
The emotional intensity of the passionate reminiscences and revelations that Portillo's subjects share turns them, for the time that they're onscreen, into the expressive equals of movie stars.

June 14, 2019 | Full Review…

Richard Brody
New Yorker
[Lourdes Portillo] manipulates her film intercutting it with Mexican soap operas, projecting interviews onto the frames of sunglasses to point to the melodrama her family mystery has become. The effect is breathtaking.

December 15, 2020 | Full Review…

Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
L.A. Weekly