By Dennis Hartley

In my 2023 review of One Night With Adela, I wrote:

…writer-director Hugo Ruiz’s debut is the most unsettling portrayal of alienation, rage, and madness I have seen since Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone. Definitely not for the squeamish.

At the time I also made a note to myself to keep an eye on this promising Spanish filmmaker. After watching his followup Dante, I’m starting to worry about this guy…is he okay? That’s not to say that I didn’t “enjoy” this jaw-dropping neo-noir, in which Ruiz has managed to double-down on the elements that made his debut so “unsettling” (now you are probably wondering if I’m okay…right?).

As he did in his first film, Ruiz delivers an urban nightmare that takes place over the course of one not-so-enchanted evening. A paramedic (Chino Darin) answers an emergency call that quickly escalates from “run of the mill” to “run for your life” (no spoilers). Ruiz has concocted a heady brew that plays like a mashup of Mann’s Collateral, Scorsese’s  After Hours, and Tarantino’s  Reservoir Dogs (for giggles he even tosses in a “glowing whatsit” reference to Robert Aldrich’s Kiss me Deadly). Abrim with shocking twists and turns, and bolstered by bold performances, Dante is one hell of an ambulance ride.