"Ladrones & Mentirosos" is a heartrending story of three Puerto Rican families struggling to stay together in a society overcome by corruption and drugs. Using a parallel structure, the film focuses on the three generations that comprise each family: teenagers, their parents and their grandparents. Mendez and Marichal have provided us with a serious, cogent and painful analysis of the social, spiritual, economic and political crisis that 108 years of colonialism have spawned in Puerto Rico. A beautiful island with the most hospitable people I have met and yet because our nation refuses to faces its imperial responsibilities, Puerto Ricans are allowed to wither and die. The spiritual crisis that the colonial situation of Puerto Rico has created, if undermining families, and the basic institutions that sustain any society. Corruption is rampant to the extent that people are not paying taxes (which has led a fiscal crisis for this nation) and a sense of cynicism and distrust permeate the island's culture.