Movies

It seems beyond belief, if not downright cruel, that a major global metropolis should provide only 45 ambulances to serve a population of nine million.

But for the Ochoa family – father Fernando, 17-year-old de facto family leader Juan, and chubby kid brother Josue, the chaos of Mexico City's streets nonetheless provides them with a hard-won way to make a meager living; hustling from grisly car wrecks to shootings to domestic-violence calls, the Ochoas are part of an army of private, for-profit ambulance services filling the gaps left by the city's deeply broken medical system. Breathlessly racing through uncaring traffic to be the first at the scene, only to quickly deal with bribe-hungry cops, competing EMTs, and victims who cannot or simply refuse to pay, Fernando and his sons somehow manage to find the time to be a normal, caring family and to hold onto a belief that, even amidst all the mayhem, tomorrow will be a better day.