The Racket

A moral thriller of the first order, The Racket is set in the darkly shadowed Latin American landscape of modern-day Brazil, a vast country on the brink of anarchic lawlessness on every level and bankruptcy both material and spiritual. Against the background of urban decay and the rape of nature, social disintegration, and private despair, two people find themselves at dangerous odds with the institutional savagery around them.

One is an idealistic young teacher, Rosa Van Meurs, whose innoce...