AllMovie

Ten-year-old Elisa is a strange young girl who interprets things a little too literally and ends up taking herself, a younger boy named Miguel and the audience on a wild, destructive ride that starts out innocently enough but culminates in terrible bloodshed. In many ways, this crime drama is a metaphor for the economic and social difficulties of Mexicans, particularly those living in the capitol city. Elisa's descent begins after she learns that her parents' comfortably upper-middle-class lifestyle and their marriage is on shaky ground. She overhears her father say "If we get close to the end of the world, we'll have nothing to eat but roaches." Wanting to help, Elisa begins collecting roaches so she can start breeding them. She also develops a fondness for licking her captives. To help her round up more cockroaches, she enlists the aid of little Miguel, whose rich parents strongly disapprove of their son's friendship with Elisa. Up to this point, the film's tone has been upbeat and airy, but then Paco, a local punk, comes round and coaxes the kids to steal chickens for him. Later, he gives them a gun and convinces them to commit a more serious robbery. The actual heist is kind of cute, a far cry from the bank robbery that Elisa will next engineer.