Xtreme crests on a wave of henchman body counts, but as revenge thriller it also elicits strong work from its single minded cast – the hero, a wronged hitman, his small team of supporters, and of course the handful of baddies he’s devoted his life to destroying. Xtreme is titled Xtremo in its original Spanish livery. Like the crossed Samurai swords that figure into its plotting, this is a film that slices off extraneous elements and gets right to the guts of the matter. Max (played with sturdy gusto by Teo Garcia) works as a hitman for a Barcelona crime family. Xtreme opens almost exactly in the middle of a gun battle as the hubris of Lucero (Oscar Jaenada) leads him to forsake the delicate relationships his aged crime boss father developed with other families in the “conclave.” Lucero kills first, doesn’t ask questions later, and is okay with fear as a motivator. And this is in spite of his dad having sent him to Japan to learn about respect from the Yakuza. Not only that, but Lucero resents how his father favoured his adopted siblings, enforcer Max and financial whiz Maria (Andrea Duro). That ends badly for old dad. Two years go by, and he befriends Leo (Oscar Casas), a loose-limbed smart aleck street dealer whose supplier turns out to be connected to Lucero’s operation. As Max, Teo Garcia has his stolid gaze fully calibrated. He doesn’t need to elaborate very much – we see him fight, we see him train; we see him give a shit when Lucero’s underlings bust up Leo’s guitar hand.