Miguel (Michael Pena) & Jose (Michael Ray Escamilla) have crossed the border from Mexico to the US in an attempt to look for work. Once they cross the border, they stumble across Olivia (Amy Madigan) who is out riding her horse. Olivia offers the 2 men some water and advises them that a lorry arrives and picks up those that aren't afraid of hard work. Shortly after, 3 youths begin firing at the 2 Mexicans in an attempt to scare them. However, things go wrong when Olivia comes back to investigate what's happening and her horse gets scared by the gun fire and throws Olivia to the ground and she hits her head on a rock. Tragically, Olivia dies and Miguel is the prime suspect in her death as he was the only one at the scene when her husband Roy (Ed Harris) finds her.
The premise is a fairly good one on paper unfortunately once the first 15-20 minutes are out of the way, the only things that the writers serve up are boredom and credibility problems. Let me explain...
At the start of the film, Miguel is arrested and charged with first degree murder. Now in the 'real' world this would only happen in the face of real evidence. Which begs the question - what evidence do the police have against Miguel? Oh yeah... he was there.. that's it. Circumstantial evidence? They never have any proof that he killed her yet they're still able to bring him in and keep him imprisoned??? On what planet would that happen? It's amazing that Miguel never filed for wrongful arrest.
Jose is an important witness to the incident that occurred, but is only featured in the first half of the film (strange considering how important that he was in the context of the narrative).
Another problem with this film is that it's so boring; I think it's really disappointing that we have to wait an hour before we actually see any detective work; it's at this point when former sheriff Roy starts to examine the scene of his wife's death and finds the bullets lodged in the sand near the crime scene, he also manages to work out exactly where the shooters were positioned (quite how he manages to do this with such accuracy is never explained). He then gets grief from the actual sheriff for moving the bullets from the crime scene. I then thought 'Well if you morons had done your job right then you would have found the bullets and figured everything out anyway'.
We are then treated to a sub plot involving Miguel's wife being kidnapped and held to ransom which for me was unnecessary, added little to the film and felt like it was included merely to pad out the running time.
Later in the film it turns out that the guy who shot at Olivia was the sheriff's son - at this point I thought 'Great' - I hope those punks get what they deserve. What really annoyed me is that we never got any closure on the most fundamental issue of the film - what happened to Sean and his friends? Did they get their comeuppance? But no, the writers decided not to bother telling us which left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Don't get me wrong, ambiguous endings can be OK sometimes, but when there's no closure on the 1 thing that held my interest in the film it made me angry.
I've always been someone who can forgive credibility problems if a film can do one basic thing; entertain, but this film couldn't even get that right. It bored me to tears, had a very disjointed narrative, and it also had a very unsatisfying ending.
Ending on a positive note, I thought that Harris and Pena were terrific which is a real testament to both actors when you look at the shocking material that they had to work with.
The premise is a fairly good one on paper unfortunately once the first 15-20 minutes are out of the way, the only things that the writers serve up are boredom and credibility problems. Let me explain...
At the start of the film, Miguel is arrested and charged with first degree murder. Now in the 'real' world this would only happen in the face of real evidence. Which begs the question - what evidence do the police have against Miguel? Oh yeah... he was there.. that's it. Circumstantial evidence? They never have any proof that he killed her yet they're still able to bring him in and keep him imprisoned??? On what planet would that happen? It's amazing that Miguel never filed for wrongful arrest.
Jose is an important witness to the incident that occurred, but is only featured in the first half of the film (strange considering how important that he was in the context of the narrative).
Another problem with this film is that it's so boring; I think it's really disappointing that we have to wait an hour before we actually see any detective work; it's at this point when former sheriff Roy starts to examine the scene of his wife's death and finds the bullets lodged in the sand near the crime scene, he also manages to work out exactly where the shooters were positioned (quite how he manages to do this with such accuracy is never explained). He then gets grief from the actual sheriff for moving the bullets from the crime scene. I then thought 'Well if you morons had done your job right then you would have found the bullets and figured everything out anyway'.
We are then treated to a sub plot involving Miguel's wife being kidnapped and held to ransom which for me was unnecessary, added little to the film and felt like it was included merely to pad out the running time.
Later in the film it turns out that the guy who shot at Olivia was the sheriff's son - at this point I thought 'Great' - I hope those punks get what they deserve. What really annoyed me is that we never got any closure on the most fundamental issue of the film - what happened to Sean and his friends? Did they get their comeuppance? But no, the writers decided not to bother telling us which left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Don't get me wrong, ambiguous endings can be OK sometimes, but when there's no closure on the 1 thing that held my interest in the film it made me angry.
I've always been someone who can forgive credibility problems if a film can do one basic thing; entertain, but this film couldn't even get that right. It bored me to tears, had a very disjointed narrative, and it also had a very unsatisfying ending.
Ending on a positive note, I thought that Harris and Pena were terrific which is a real testament to both actors when you look at the shocking material that they had to work with.