By Emilio Frenk
Director: Jonás Cuarón
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Alondra Hidalgo, Diego Cataño, Oscar Flores, David Lorenzo and Marco Pérez.
Rating: Good
Academy Award Nominee Jonás Cuarón, is behind the cameras with “Desierto” and is a good drama thriller.
The movie centers in Moisés (Gael García Bernal) a mechanic that is in the back of a truck with a group of illegal immigrants in order to cross the us border.
Unfortunately the truck breaks down and instead of crossing through the river the group will have to try to cross through the dessert.
Once Moisés and the group cross, they will be targeted by Sam (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his german shepherd dog Tracker will try to take the law under their own hands and start a shooting spread against the group.
That leaves Moisés as one of the few survivors of the group and will try to cross to the United States at any costs even if it means to put his life in danger and making him an easy target for Sam.
One of things that I liked of “Desierto” was the fact that Jonás Cuarón knew how to combine the elements of drama and thriller and made it a straight forward.
The screenplay, also written by Cuarón and Mateo García is very well written; although for moments it was predictable and the characters even though they are simple but they are really well portrayed and they are believable in all levels.
In this kind of movies is very common to see cases of using excesive flashbacks and this wasn’t the case. This is one of the reasons why the movie works.
The cinematography by Damián García is sharp and I lovethe contrast he used for each and every one of the characters of the film.
Like I mentioned in this space before Gael García Bernal is confirmed to be the best actor of his generation and he did an amazing job on portraying a father who makes his son a promise that he will see him again.
The inner conflicts of all the characters work and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who has gained fame for the tv show “The Walking Dead” is a true villain and plays a man full of hate and anger towards inmigrants and is frightning to see his character every time he is pulling the trigger.
The ending could have been better but at the same time I understand in what direction Cuarón wanted to go.
Even with it’s flaws I still give a recommendation to “Desierto” making it a very interesting thriller.