Perdita Durango
Rosie Perez plays Perdita Durango, a woman who goes to Mexico to scatter the ashes of her dead sister.
In Mexico she is picked up by bank robbing drug dealer Romeo Dolorosa, played by Javier Bardem. He robbed the bank to pay off his debt to loan shark Catalina (Demián Bichir). Romeo also engages in various scams pretending to be a magical Santeria priest, hacking up corpses while snorting cocaine.
Romeo’s latest scam is working for gangster Mr. Santos (Don Stroud) transporting refrigerated human fetuses to Las Vegas where they will be used to make cosmetic skin cream.
Perdita devises a plan that they should capture a gringo and eat him as part of Romeo’s ceremonies. They randomly kidnap geeky college student Dwayne and his girlfriend Estelle. First Perdita rapes Dwayne while Romeo rapes Estelle. They hold a ceremony to sacrifice Estelle while they force Dwayne to watch. Before the girl can be killed the sacrifice is interrupted by a gang of men led by a Shorty Dee (Santiago Segura), a betrayed former partner of Romeo.
Romeo and Perdita escape with Dwayne and Estelle still their captives. The four proceed to go to the meeting with Santos’ people to pick up the truckload of fetuses. Unfortunately, the hand-off is interrupted by Drug Enforcement Agent Woody Dumas, played by James Gandolfini. All of Santos’ men are killed but Romeo escapes, driving to Vegas with Dwayne, while Perdita follows with Estelle.
On the trip Romeo finds out his grandmother's house was raided by some of Catalina's men as punishment for Romeo's unpaid debt. Romeo visits Catalina in a club, pretending to offer Estelle as payment. When he gets Catalina alone Romeo kills the loan shark.
Finally Romeo, Perdita, Dwayne, and Estelle get to Vegas. But they’ve been followed the whole way by Dumas. More, the drop has become a trap for Romeo -- Santos is upset about all the dead men at the pick up so he has hired Romeo’s cousin Reggie (Carlos Bardem) to kill Romeo at the drop off.
Romeo and his one-armed ex-marine buddy Doug go to the drop, tipped off about the double-cross. Romeo leaves Perdita to watch the hostages, but Perdita's nervousness overcomes her. She lets Estelle and Dwayne go so she can check on her lover.
Reggie kills Doug and Perdita arrives just in time to see Reggie shoot Romeo in the back, killing him. Perdita shoots and kills Reggie and then flees as the cops bust in, led by Woody, intending to arrest the men but instead finding them all dead.
Alone now Perdita walks the Vegas strip, mourning Romeo.
psychedelic, comedy, cruelty, violence, flashback