Desierto (2015)

Genres

Drama, Thriller

Director

Jonás Cuarón

Countries

Mexico, France

Cast

Gael Garcia Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Alondra Hidalgo, Diego Cataño, Marco Pérez, Oscar Flores, David Lorenzo, Butch McCain

Storyline

The hopeful journey to seek a better life in the US becomes a fight for survival when a deranged vigilante (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) chases a group of men and women trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border.

Opinion

I was really looking forward to Desierto for a couple of reasons, Gael Garcia Bernal and its thematic, and given the director, Alfonso Cuarón's son, I was expecting a well-done film. Unfortunately, this film was a major let down as it ended up being a pretty shallow film.

The story is very thin. It barely spends any time setting up the premise before turning into an overlong and way too slow paced cat-and-mouse dynamic that never seems to end. Surprisingly, in spite of that, the film still manages to have plenty of thrills and keep you on the edge of your seat as the Mexicans try to avoid getting killed by the American psycho.

But if you take the thrills away, you're left with nothing. The film suffers a lot because of the poor script, the characters in particular. They are very weak, they lack development, and they are so flat it's almost impossible to care for them. We get to know a little more about Moises and Adela, both improved by good performances from Gael Garcia Bernal and Alondra Hidalgo, but it still isn't enough to make us care.

Desierto also fails to be an effective film and completely wastes its potential. The very important issues it deals with, that of immigration, isn't developed as it should have and it's nothing more than a plot device. What a shame.