We screened this title with pretty low expectations, but we're great fans of the Baja California peninsula, so we hoped that we'd at least get to see some great scenery and maybe some familiar places.
This film, however, only served to remind us that good movies are hard to make. There was nothing overtly terrible about this effort (well, the "special effects" surfing scenes and the ferry sinking with the RV aboard -- not a spoiler, btw, as this scene is in the trailer -- were so terrible you had to wonder whether the filmmaker realized they were laughable), but when you take a B-minus story (the story had potential, sadly unrealized here), C-plus acting (the cast has talent, I fault the director for not eliciting better performances), C-minus screenplay (oh! the dialogue! the cliches! the cultural condescension! the tedious expository moments!), D-plus digital color grading (a heavy-handed directorial indulgence that should have been totally unnecessary) on top of the aforementioned failed effects, you get a D-minus-minus movie. The whole turned out to be MUCH less than the sum of its parts.
And the lure of a vicarious road trip down the peninsula? Sorry, no dice here, either, as the movie was almost completely shot in and around a modern development in Loreto, standing in for scenes as disparate as the old city of La Paz and the Los Cabos International airport.
Oh, I should add that the music was pretty good -- and while none of it stuck with me the next day, it was maybe the best part of the movie!
Better Baja movies abound. Dial up the desert-racing documentary DUST TO GLORY, or the Spanish-language dramedy CAMINO A MARTES, just to name two. Let this one dry in the desert dust and never waste anyone's time again.
