Lone Star: Grade B

B
Lone Star (1996)

Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peña, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey, Ron Canada; Writer-Director John Sayles.

It’s not a western, although it is set in a small Texas border town and the major players wear cowboy hats and guns strapped to their hip. Deeds (Cooper) is the town’s sheriff, the third in a line of bigger-than-life figures to hold that office. His father was a legendary sheriff in the 1950's who succeeded the evil Charlie Wade (Kristofferson), a corrupt racist who stole thousands from the town pension fund and absconded without a trace. But when a skeleton with a sheriff’s star is dug up in the desert, Deeds wonders who it was. As he unravels the mystery, he learns more about who his father was, and who he is. There are several compelling subplots that run parallel to that main theme. I saw the surprise ending coming, but even so, it was interesting and reasonable.

About the only thing wrong with this movie is its 2:15 length, which is due to a slow pace and perhaps too many subplots. Sayles’ writing and directing make the characters rounded and believable, except Kristofferson’s. That character, who shoots Mexicans and blacks on sight if they do not pay extortion, is over the top. He stands as an unrealistic personification of evil that the other characters can work against. However, sets and cinematography are perfect. Costumes are excellent. But the characterizations are the best part.

Cooper’s performance in particular creates a genuine character, with spot on accent and speech timing, but he was a bit too taciturn, too remote to be fully engaging. I like a little more personality in my brooding sheriffs. Tommy Lee Jones captured the character in Electric Mist (2009), which may have been an attempt at a remake, although it was a terrible movie. It’s not so easy to imitate John Sayles. His artistry makes this film a completely engrossing experience.

Sleep Dealer: Grade A

A
Sleep Dealer ( 2008 )
Luis Fernando Peña, Leonor Varela, Jacob Vargas; Co-writer and Director Alex Rivera. (Mostly Spanish, subtitled).

This low-budget, sci-fi indie gets an A for its genre, but like nearly all sci-fi movies, it is more fascinated with its technology than with human drama, so allowances must be made.

In a near-future North America, Mexican laborers “telecommute” to the U.S. by plugging their nervous systems into computers so they can remotely operate robots across the border that pick fruit, perform welding and yard work. As the manager of a telecommuting center in Tijuana notes, it gives America its foreign labor without the foreigners. The main theme is technological imperialism and human exploitation, ostensibly under the guise of anti-terrorist vigilance.

Memo, a young Mexican in Oaxaca (Pena), built his own HAM radio and while surfing picks up a police channel. He overhears police chasing then killing some offender. In his own neighborhood, drone aircraft patrol the private dam that has blocked his village’s river and ruined his father’s small farm. The drones are operated remotely by pilots in San Diego. When the San Diego corporation detects that they have been overheard by a HAM operator, they order a strike, and Memo’s family home is blown up, his father killed. The incident is reported on TV and hailed as a victory in the ongoing fight against terrorism.

Memo leaves for Tijuana to earn money for his now destitute family. He finds work as a telecommuter, operating remote construction robots in California. He must have “nodes” installed on his body to interface to the computer, and an attractive young woman (Varela) installs them for him, and they develop a relationship. The details of how Memo plugs into the computer are visually fascinating, reminiscent of scenes from Brazil (1985) and Blade Runner (1982), as well as William Gibson’s classic novel, Neuromancer. We, and Memo, discover however that “jacking in” to the computer eventually destroys your nervous system and makes you blind, so the human exploitation embodied by the system is total.

The romantic story with the girl develops in an interesting way, and so does an unlikely relationship between Memo and the pilot who killed his father (Vargas). The ending is predictable and unimaginative, but plausible and Hollywood Happy.

It is an extremely well-made film, especially considering its budget; beautifully photographed, intellectually stimulating, and dramatically interesting. I especially appreciated creative camera work, shots using mirrors, and so on. The main disappointment is the lack of an overall message. The important political and economic themes of the movie are not dealt with. Those issues are raised, shown, but abandoned. Perhaps that is the film’s message: heartless capitalistic exploitation will continue and nothing can change it.

Sin Nombre: Grade A

A
Sin Nombre (2009)
Paulina Gaitan, Kristian Ferrer, Édgar Flores; Writer-Director Cary Fukunaga. (Spanish, subtitled).

A father and two youths from Guatemala make the long journey north to escape the poverty and hopelessness of their lives. They walk, and boat, and travel through Mexico riding on top of freight trains, dodging the border patrol, scavenging food, shelter and water as they can. It is a well told story, very realistic, not over-sentimentalized, but sympathetic. As they cross Chiapas in southern Mexico, a young man (Flores) jumps on the train with a few fellow gangsters. They are members of one of the notorious Latino gangs similar to the mafia. They start robbing the hundreds of migrants at gunpoint, but when the mean, ugly, psychopathic gang leader attempts to molest the young girl from Guatemala (Gaitan), his fellow gang member has an attack of scruples and slashes the leader's throat with a single slice of a machete. He knows that makes him marked for death. He continues on the train north, but the gang is international and will not forget about him. The Guatemalan girl befriends him and as they jointly dodge border patrol and gangsters, they develop a relationship. The young man realizes the futility of the gang life, but it is too late for him. The girl seems oblivious to this darker side of life, but maybe not. It’s ambiguous. The ending is realistic, but definitely not Hollywood Happy.

Acting by the young people is excellent. Scenery and music are excellent. Photography is excellent. This is a compelling movie without a false note. It would have been easy to slip into melodrama, like Slumdog Millionaire did, but this picture is completely honest. It conveys a palpable sense of the reality of the Latino gangs and shows how easy it is for youngsters to get involved with them. The title means “without a name,” perhaps a reference to the nameless millions who attempt the journey to El Norte each year. There is perhaps a secondary political statement, but this is primarily a love story that illustrates a world alien to most of us.

Fast Food Nation: Grade B

B

Fast Food Nation

Greg Kinnear, Luis Guzman, Paul Dano, Wilmer Valderrama, with Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Bruce Willis, Kris Kristofferson. Director Richard Linklater

The most compelling of the two stories has nothing to do with fast food, but is the story of how Mexican laborers cross the desert to find work in meat processing plants (and hotels), and what they have to do to get and keep jobs that are physically grueling and disgusting (like skinning and eviscerating cattle). But the film gives the main narrative line to Kinnear as an executive at a thinly disguised McDonalds-type burger corporation, trying to find out why there are fecal coliform bacteria in the meat patties. He takes a tour of the meat processing factory, which is actually quite interesting, and interviews a few people who have no real information but make grand, vacuous speeches about the state of America. Kinnear discovers nothing factual. Despite my expectations, this movie is not an expose of the meat packing industry. People may be horrified to see how cows become hamburgers, but there’s nothing scandalous about it. Cows are a crop cultivated to be eaten, just like carrots. The young white college students who are horrified by meat processing are shown to be ignorant and silly. On the other hand, how the Mexican laborers struggle to make a life in America is scandalous, but that story is not developed, except to show stereotypes of their travail. We don’t get insight into any of the characters and the movie ends without resolution. Ethan Hawke gives a standout performance but his part is completely irrelevant to the main themes. On the plus side, the visual imagery is strong, especially the meat processing and the suburban squalor, the dialog is snappy, and the acting is pretty good all around. Better story integration, tighter editing, and more character development would have made it an A movie.