With no other reviews of this film at present, I guess I'm working without a net but I'll give it a try. I'll let the pre-provided summary above handle the plot description and move directly into the film itself, which I could best describe as a somewhat "artsy" crime drama, (and I mean that in a good way.)
Filmed mostly in Tijuana, it takes wonderful advantage of the various atmospheres and the smaller sets were also extremely well chosen for realism and visual interest. There are some action sequences but the film is not particularly violent nor "action" oriented, there are numerous personality conflicts and those are what mainly propels the story through the urban Mexican landscape, providing tensions which are occasionally punctuated by violent confrontations.
The players put forth a fine effort in delivering a multi-layered plot which is interesting enough to hold our attention but only barely, it's that type of movie that if you wander away from it for a few minutes, you may not care if you return to finish it. The story-line is littered with implausibilities which in themselves are not deal-breakers, for instance: the quandary of how to arm a foreign hit-squad traveling over the border is beautifully handled by the artifice of having the weapons cached in a pit in a field for them before they arrive but when recovering them, the squad parks about eighty feet away and unnecessarily carries the weapons back to their van in plain view of the surrounding buildings instead of parking right next to the pit and blocking the view of the transfer with the van.
But if it's not going to be uber-realistic like Traffic or testosterone driven like Die Hard or mentally intense like The Usual Suspects or absolutely drip atmosphere like The Godfather or Once Upon a Time in New York or be over-the-top like Kill Bill, it does need something to hook us into it and really hold us there. For me, ultimately that turned out to be the scenery but I don't think that they were actually trying to make a travelogue.
As a kiosk/netflix rental there is enough to recommend here, some great scenery and vignettes, very solid acting, some very good twists and a great score and while the whole may not quite be the sum of the parts it is still a decent enough crime flick.
Looking over reviews of the writer/director's few earlier works it appears he is quickly maturing and there is a lot of potential here, to be certain. His eye is excellent but the story is just a little too clichéd, I'd really like to see his considerable talents utilized in a better story. I would like to see what he, the cast and crew could do with a story that has more impetus, like Man on Fire. I may seem a little harsh because there are no other reviews and I'm trying to cover everything alone; so do your duty - go out and rent it and write an accompanying review.
