MamaGravity
good back-story, and good acting
Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Aubrey Hackett
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
hddu10
An American remake of the Mexican film "El Traspatio", the film is LOOSELY (can't emphasize that enough) the case of Abdel Sharif and the subsequent mass graves found in the desert surrounding Ciudad Juarez. While "El Traspatio" bases its story through the eyes of protagonists in connecting stories, Bordertown is just a formulaic, linear plot based around a name-brand actress, Jennifer Lopez. Sadly, her role as a white American reporter with a "hidden secret" (she's really Mexican...SHHHHHH!) is just too laughable to be taken seriously (the director and Jennifer apparently believe making her wear a few hair-clips magically transforms her into a maquiladora worker). So, the original was bad...and this is slightly worse.
Slobodan Stamenkovic
Human borders regardless doing bad or good are visible with difficulties. When I think about Mexico, first associations are food (for example burritos), mariachi and sadly so many news about brutal murders. This movie is about Mexico and some good people (Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas) trying to find people involved in killing many woman workers from factories near border with USA. This is movie about huge deviation in Mexican society. Origin of this deviation is poverty in all aspects,mental, material, human... Mexican governments are solving this problem with military and corrupted police, without trying to deal with cause. Because of that you have " domino effects " on Mexican border with USA. We have two people putting their career way ahead lives. From mine point of view, it's stupid and wrong but this is moral victory for them. They are trying to do something impossible from their position but if it is possible to change position everything is possible. One life of good person is lost. Put your life in front of career, because career may trick you that it is life. Don't be tricked. When you realize career is not life, life can become your career. This movie is like life not so easy to watch, but good for thinking about...
Lechuguilla
"It isn't free trade; it's slave trade; it's a ... scam", yells investigative reporter Lauren Adrian (Jennifer Lopez), to her newspaper boss George Morgan (Martin Sheen). They're arguing about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the villain in this film about the injustices of NAFTA border factories toward their women workers, and in particular about the border town of Juarez, on the Rio Grande, across from El Paso, Texas.The script's characters and plot are fictional. But they are set against a backdrop of a real-life situation that has been going on for years. Poorly paid young Mexican women are raped and killed in these NAFTA border towns. Nobody really cares, least of all the cold corporations that employ the women.In "Bordertown", George Morgan sends Lauren to Juarez to get a story. She does. But what she finds is that the real killers are more powerful and shadowy than she imagined. It's a situation not unlike what Karen Silkwood faced when she tried to investigate a nuclear plant.The film is thus highly political. Its message overpowers the story. Most viewers will sympathize with the message. But what about the story? The characters are not entirely believable. For example, the young Mexican woman whom Lauren befriends can't seem to speak English when they first meet. And Lauren says she can't speak Spanish. Yet later, the young woman and Lauren chat up a storm both in English and Spanish, a dialogue necessity, no doubt, to placate viewers. The plot's climax is Hollywood sensationalized, which detracts from the authenticity of the message.Color cinematography is very high contrast, which works well, given the good vs. evil theme. Prod design and costumes are quite realistic. The filming in Mexico gives credibility to the story, though filming entirely in Juarez was not possible owing to the physical danger. Acting is acceptable. Lopez does a fine job.My impression is that "Bordertown" was not given a proper theatrical release here in the U.S. because of its tough political message, which speaks volumes, if true. But despite some imperfections in its script, the film deserves to be seen by viewers, and specifically because of that potent underlying message.
James Horak
There can be a special elegance to a movie that touches the human condition honestly and with clarity. Add to that the harshest of unrealized economic realities and you have Bordertown, a film just as significant to our future as to our past. For it shows us in the least compromising terms, what the trends of today are creating for the reality of tomorrow. It is a movie this reviewer had thought would never be made. Not since Apocalypse Now, has Martin Sheen delivered his role so magnificently. As the newspaper editor, George Morgan, his delivery of lines in a particular scene (summing up these aforementioned trends,) is comparable with that elegant rendering of Sir Richard Burton when that late great stands before the bar to indict a system showing neither fairness or justice to his client in the Medusa Touch.Jennifer Lopez as Lauren Adrian, an investigative reporter sent into a story neither her editor or her can imagine in scope, IS the part. Revealing just how capable she is with character delineation, Lopez excels beyond all expectation. Had this performance been on the stage, five minutes of "bravo" would have ensued at curtain. Writer/director Gregory Nava is to be applauded on every score, not the least of which is his courage.This reviewer does not say this easily nor lightly: If adequately promoted for what it was worth and for the import of its message, this movie might have changed the course of history if made a decade earlier. It still might make its mark in helping to remedy the economic and political madness now placed on the world's table. Highly, highly, highly recommended. JCH
