The Gatekeeper

I hardly ever say this, but this is a very, very bad movie. I gave it a one...I don't think I'd ever rated a movie a one, out of dozens of movies I've rated. For starters, the portrayals are COMPLETELY inaccurate. I grew up in a border town in Mexico (before eventually moving to the border town in the U.S.), and this is not even close to reality. Sure, movies are not reality, but this movie also has no point, no real story, horrendous acting, and, the worst aspect of the movie, an awful script. Every line is not only full of cheese, but it actually doesn't mean anything (to the movie or to real life). Please, if you ever see this movie, do not even begin to consider the possibility of getting anything informative out of it. I really dislike bashing someone, but I can't help to think how in the world this guy got to make this movie and, worst of all, release it nationwide. Again, portrayals of ALL people (not only Mexicans) and individual characters are especially unjust. I actually went into the theatre with a positive attitude and favorable expectations, so if it would've been something in-the-middle, I would've given you the benefit of the doubt, but the truth is that, *gulp*, this is the worst movie I recall watching.

I've just come from seeing "The Gatekeeper" and liked it. It's fairly (although not absolutely) obvious that it's low budget. Casting is good, direction seemed good. .

The issue of illegal immigrants is one I'm very interested in. I live in southern California, a transplant from the Pacific Northwest, and CANNOT understand Californians (Anglo) who otherwise seem intelligent, enlightened, progressive, but become incredible bigots and racists as soon as one mentions "mess-gans".

A progressive TV program here in CA done by PBS ("California Connected") attempted to address this issue a week or so ago and all it addressed was the strong opinions, pro and con, about the people coming here from across the border.

I'm still trying to understand and perhaps never will.

The story line is one that appeals to me, being a resident of the Southwest. I have heard every argument pertaining to illegal immigration and kind of stand in the middle of the two sides brought up in this film. In this film, the main character is a self-hating, half-Mexican, border patrol officer. He loathes the illegals with all of his might and makes sure everybody is aware of how he feels (even his fiance, who, why she likes him, I have no idea). The man is a lousy human being. He associates with a racist group that is trying to defame the Mexican people in every way it can. They decide that our main character will go undercover to expose how the illegals come into the country (as if nobody knew). How this will bolster their cause, I don't know. Well, he will make the trip and he will alter his view of these people that he once hated and see that their lives are much harder than anything he has had to deal with. The film is not terrible, but it is far from great. Some scenes are really good, but others are just eye-straining bad, which is understandable for a low-budget film. The plot does strain credibility towards the end, and then some. However, if you are interested in seeing a film dealing with Mexican-American relations, well, this is pretty good, well, it is not that bad.

I actually thought this movie was really good. Especially if you consider they filmed it in 18 days with only 200,000 dollars, as I was told by the J.C. Frey, the Director/writer/main actor, when they screened the film here at the U of A, in Tucson. The story is mostly accurate from what I've witnessed living in Tucson for 5 years and Phoenix for 10. So many Mexicans die crossing the border, their families are split in search of better jobs, or they are coerced into criminal labor that I think a movie like this puts the issues at the forefront. Hell, the migrant group (secondary actors with little or no speaking roles) were real Mexican workers who the film crew hired for realism. I think that's really cool.

And for someone living in Arizona, where the previews at theaters are often preempted by "Methlabs and kids don't mix" anouncements, the story of Adam/Juan Carlos being forced to work in the methlab is all too real. Just because this is an independent movie and therefore limited to resources doesn't mean it's bad. The secondary theme of Adam rediscovering his Mexican roots is very powerful and also a very prevalent theme in the southwest, especially.

This movie has had a lot of favorable press from Hispanic audiences. The local (Tucson) media has been kind to it. A work of art it is not. So the question is whether you pay attention to the message, or get turned of, like I did, with how it was delivered. We definetly need good movies about the subject of Mexicans flowing into North America. This is not one of them. Once again we learn that actors should not write, direct and star in their own vehicles; as it just leads to a myopathic product.

Amateurs can do great work but almost everything about this movie is C grade. The bad guys all have one expression: self satisfying smirks. All of them must have gone to the Simon Legree school of villainous acting. I would have almost preferred it if they had gone to the Snidely Whiplash graduate school of delightful self parody! And when they misbehave it's in spades, so we can really loathe them. Speaking of Simon Legree there is an Uncle Tom's Cabin kind of simplicity to the movie. There are no shades to the characters, all are one - dimensional. We are forced to like the victims and hate the victimizers.

Frey decides to make his character an angry self loathing bigotted caricature, so that in the end I didn't care if he was redeemed, because he was now an angry other loathing bigotted caricature! Has he grown? We never find out, but in the cliches of these kind of movies we are to presume that he does.

An interesting twist is that the movie is in English with Spanish subtitles. I assume Frey did this to attract an Anglo audience. It would have worked better the other way around, so that the plot could have had a Mexican rhythm to it, and thereby somewhat masked it's faults.