ReelBob: ‘Monos’ ★★★½

By Bob Bloom

The deeper you get into “Monos,” the more you feel as if you were watching a reinterpretation of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.”

‘Monos” is set on a mountaintop — and later, a jungle — in an unidentified Latin American country.

The mountaintop is the base for group of teenage soldiers, who spend their time being indoctrinated by the Messenger from their superiors in “The Organization,” training and taking care of a hostage, a female American doctor whom they call “Doctora.”

The adolescents all go by such wartime aliases as “Rambo, “Dog,” “Boom Boom,” “Wolf,” “Lady,” “Bigfoot” and “Swede.”

These young people treat the insurgency in which they are involved as a grand adventure; they shoot off their automatic weapons into the air, using them like toys.

Director Alejandro Landes, who cowrote the script with Alexis Dos Santos, never explains for whom these children are fighting — or whom against, nor where, how or why they were conscripted.

None of that, however, is relevant. Landes is more interested in the corruption of these young people. At the outset, they appear confident; they have a swagger about them. They seem to be a cohesive unit.

But everything is not what it seems.

The Messenger brings the unit a cow; they are ordered to milk it and take care of it. The Messenger also grants Wolf and Lady permission to “partner,” allowing them to begin a sexual relationship.

While Wolf and Lady consummate their relationship, the others honor and celebrate the occasion with drink and gunfire. During their festivities, the cow is accidentally killed by Dog.

Dog is placed is solitary confinement as disciplinary punishment.

The rest of the Monos drag the cow to their camp, where they strip it for its meat.

While observing all this, Wolf, who was the team leader, is so flooded with guilt and other emotions that he commits suicide.

Events begin to spiral downward soon after, especially after Bigfoot assumes command of the squadron.

After an attack, the group, along with their hostage, is forced to relocate to the jungle.

But the young group is continuing to slowly fracture, and members begin to turn on each other.

Not helping matters is Doctora’s unsuccessful escape attempt. Recaptured, she is chained in the new encampment.

Bigfoot’s ferocious and heavy-handed leadership creates division within the small group, as does the sexual tension among the adolescents.

Later, Rambo deserts, and Doctora makes another escape attempt — this one successful

Landes creates a strange dichotomy between the beauty of the land and the darkness that envelops these young people.

These are teenagers forced to accept adult responsibility and left to their own devices to do so.

They are expected to grow up before their time with no guidance or supervision.

And the mental toll on them is too heavy a burden.

Landes allows some sympathy for the plight of the unit members, but, for the most part, he is objectively presenting their story.

“Monos” is a disturbing and difficult movie to watch. It is brutal at times, raw and uncompromising.

This sad commentary on the exploitation of children depicts how they are easily manipulated by adults for their own purposes.

I like the fact that Landes does not offer a specific nation for the story. It makes the tale more universal because, sadly, this abuse is occurring around the world — from Africa to South America to the Middle East.

It’s painful to see children, no matter what age, robbed of their childhoods. And it is even more dismaying when they are taught to glorify in killing for a cause they probably know nothing about.

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My reviews appear at ReelBob (reelbob.com) and Rottentomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com). I also review Blu-rays and DVDs. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com or on Twitter @ReelBobBloom. Links to my reviews can be found on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

MONOS
3½ stars out of 4
(R), violence, language, sexual content, drug use