The Sweetest Kill Is Exactly the Latin, Queer Noir Hollywood Has Never Bothered to Make 

The Sweetest Kill is an indie gangster thriller that follows the high-stakes journey of lead Raquel Pacheco, portrayed by Sofía Yepes. The neo-noir, set in LatinX and LGBTQ+ Los Angeles, explores a reality where lust and survival compete as opposing interests. With an action packed plot and energetic cast, The Sweetest Kill is sure to leave one expecting the unexpected. 

The film follows Raquel, a hardened ex-Marine grinding to make hip-hop beats and leave the street life behind. It’s those streets where she meets Veronica, a singer from Seattle, and the pair quickly fall into a steamy romance. Driven by a thirst for power in a world that’s held her underwater with two hands, Raquel would do anything to protect her lover––but when the weight of her hustle begins to catch up to her, Raquel begins to question her spiraling reality.

Set to a fly hip-hop score and slight sepia color grade, walls glowing with graffiti tags, Metro seats speckled with grime, orange, and yellow, director Franciso Ordoñez captures elements of Los Angeles through the Angeleno’s eye. The recurrent imagery indicates deep cultural symbolism and emphasizes Raquel’s deep community ties. 

Throughout the film, Ordoñez explores the bounds of Raquel’s moral ambiguity. Yepes co-wrote the screenplay along with Ordoñez, cultivating a world where LatinX and queer representation doesn’t fall short to clichés. The film portrays the balancing act of intimacy and As Veronica and Raquel’s romance turns obsessive, the walls start to close in.

The Sweetest Kill is a hair-raising, emotional cinematic experience that shows how an environment can make you or break you. With double-lives, drug dealing gangsters, and dark pasts, The Sweetest Kill is a thriller that’s sure to keep you on the edge of your seats. Stakes raise, deadlines loom, and the viewer has to wonder: which brush with death will be the last? Step into a world of secrets and second chances. That is, if you’re one of the lucky ones.  

The film will be available on leading digital platforms including Amazon, iTunes, Fandango at Home, Google Play, and Sling TV, as well as through major cable and satellite providers such as Comcast Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, Cox Cable, DirecTV, DirecTV U-verse, Dish Network, Verizon Fios, Altice Optimum, RCN, and Rogers in Canada, in addition to numerous regional cable operators.