NASA: A Volta

This is an unhinged, inventive little picture, a sort of 8-bit version of Grand Theft Auto, set in an anonymous South American metropolis. A drug deal has gone sour, and there's a missing suitcase full of money. Despite an approximately isometric perspective, it manages dizzying camera angles, frantic action.

NASA: A Volta drips swearing and violence. It has tremendous bloodshed, cute little helicopters, a look that's somewhere between a Gameboy game and a cardboard model of a favela duct-taped to a forest of step-ladders. The character design is fantastic, the tone joyfully dark. Alexie Tylevich's film is soundtracked by N.A.S.A., an LA/Brazil-based DJ collective, a bass-y driving rumble as 'filthy' as the events. This is an entertaining little picture, over too soon - one can only hope that this volta will be followed by a galliard or pavane.