Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Madrid, summer 2011. Economic crisis. 15-M movement and 1.5 million pilgrims waiting for the Pope’s arrival live side by side in a Madrid that’s hotter and more chaotic than ever. In this context, detectives Velarde and Alfaro must find what seems to be a serial killer. Their against-the-clock hunt will make them realise something they’d never imagined: neither of them are so very different from the killer.
May God Save Us is a competent neo-noir thriller anchored in a vividly realized Madrid during the 2011 economic crisis and papal visit. The cinematography stands out as the film's strongest suit, capturing the oppressive summer heat and social chaos with a bleached, sweaty aesthetic that genuinely evokes the period and place. The plot is a fairly standard serial killer procedural elevated somewhat by its sociopolitical backdrop and the moral ambiguity drawn between detectives and killer, though the central thesis — that the hunters mirror the hunted — is handled more schematically than it is earned. The performances from Antonio de la Torre and Roberto Álamo are grounded and credible but not exceptional. The ending disappoints, resolving in a way that feels abrupt and undercuts the thematic complexity the film had been building, leaving the moral reckoning somewhat hollow rather than resonant.