{"id":163064,"date":"2016-10-14T07:05:43","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T14:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/?p=163064"},"modified":"2016-10-14T07:05:43","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T14:05:43","slug":"desierto-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/2016\/10\/14\/desierto-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Desierto Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

DESIERTO<\/a><\/strong>
\nSTX Entertainment<\/strong>
\nReviewed by: Harvey Karten, Shockya<\/strong>
\nGrade: B<\/strong>
\nDirector:\u00a0 Jon\u00e1s Cuar\u00f3n<\/strong>
\nWritten by: Jon\u00e1s Cuar\u00f3n, Mateo Garc\u00eda Elizondo<\/strong>
\nCast: Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal<\/a>, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Alondra Hidalgo<\/strong>
\nScreened at: Review 1, NYC, 10\/5<\/strong>\/16
\nOpens: October 13, 2016<\/p>\n

\u201cDesierto\u201d portrays a scruffy bunch of Mexican border-crossers as decent people who would probably be hard-working if they make it, and an American gun-toter as a psychotic.\u00a0 This may be why one critic opines that the movie would not be on Donald Trump\u2019s best-ten list.\u00a0 On the other hand, the psycho could conceivably be a candidate for Trump\u2019s head of U.S. Border Patrol since he appears quite effective in dissuading illegals, entering the U.S\u00a0 through a completely ineffective barbed-wire fence\u00a0 that eight or so migrantes crouched and crossed.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesierto\u201d eventually becomes a two-character manhunt, which is why you might be amazed if you stay for the end-credits to see how many people are involved in the crew and how much money a film by an indie studio like STX had to spend.\u00a0 It features some rollicking songs on the soundtrack with a major role for the Foley\u2014that\u2019s the department that reproduces sound, in this case punctuating the thump of falling bodies, the whoosh of a flare gun, the bark of a German Shepherd, the noise of a high-powered rifle with telescopic sight, the panting of the hapless Mexicans who must think that the border patrol has been given a free hand.<\/p>\n

The two central characters, who inevitably duke it out as in similar melodramas of hunt and hunted, are Moises (Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal) and Sam (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).\u00a0 Moises (Moses, in English) is appropriately named: the man who crosses a vast landscape to lead his people to freedom.\u00a0 His direction comes not from Heaven from the father-son team of Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n and Jon\u00e1s Cuar\u00f3n with a screenplay assist from Alfonso\u2019s uncle Carlos.\u00a0 For his part, Sam\u2014who is named only in the notes\u2014has more than rabbits on his mind when he traverses the desert on the Baja California border with his fearless dog Tracker (uncredited though a major actor\u2014why?)<\/p>\n

When an unlucky group of Mexicans are loosed from the truck after a breakdown and directed to walk bearing heavy backpacks and gallons of water, they trudge across the flat land only to be picked off one by one by Sam.\u00a0 In one case, a fellow who temporarily gets away is eaten by Tracker, but he will be avenged later on.\u00a0 Sam, who attracts the attention of a lone border patrol cop, tells the authorities that he\u2019s out in 120-degree heat to hunt rabbits, the explanation is good enough.\u00a0 But like psychos who shoot from rooftops such as Charles Whitman, who in August 1966 killed 49 people at the University of Texas, Sam is not politically motivated, but simply gets off on killing.<\/p>\n

There is not much of a script as the attraction of this movie is in the photography in a remote area of land that is either flat or craggy.\u00a0 The actors, or stunt people, do their job jumping from rock to rock across crevices, some inevitably falling to their deaths, but not a thing is known about their characters unless you count Moises\u2019 revelation that he has a son in Oakland and that he had crossed before, evading the authorities until stopped for a defective headlight and deported.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is well known even to those who prefer TV to cinema for his many roles including one character in \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d and more recently as Jason Crouse, boyfriend of lawyer and governor\u2019s unhappy spouse Alicia Florrick, in \u201cThe Good Wife.\u201d\u00a0 Guadalajara-born Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal is arguably Mexico\u2019s best known actor with a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that includes the raunchy \u201cY tu mama tambi\u00e9n.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the good old days when movie houses played two features, a newsreel, a serial and coming attractions, \u201cDesierto\u201d would fit in nicely as a solid \u201cB\u201d movie.\u00a0 It played in the 2015 Toronto Film Festival and was selected as the Mexican entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

Rated R.\u00a0 88 minutes.\u00a0 \u00a9 Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online<\/strong><\/p>\n

Story \u2013 C<\/strong>
\nActing \u2013 B+<\/strong>
\nTechnical \u2013 A-<\/strong>
\nOverall – B<\/strong><\/p>\n

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