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Oct 14, 2016 By Stephen Danay Web Exclusive

A group of illegal immigrants attempting to cross the Mexico/Texas border find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive when they are targeted by a vicious, rifle-wielding vigilante intent on wiping them out.

Any buzz generated by Desierto – good or bad – will not stem from its modest success as a survival thriller, but from its perfectly timed, zeitgeist-grabbing premise. Made to order for the cultural hellscape that is the 2016 US election season, the film pits a group of mostly faceless illegal immigrants against a caricature of gun-worshipping, red state xenophobia. Written and directed by Jonás Cuarón – who co-wrote Gravity with his Academy-Award winning father, Alfonso – Desierto eschews the grindhouse vibe its pulpy premise would imply for a bare bones polemic punctuated by artful landscape shots and terse violence. As a thriller, the film is perfectly serviceable. What drags it down into full-blown mediocrity is the script, which lacks both the specificity and character work necessary to live up to the concept. As the protagonist, Gael García Bernal is soulful and sympathetic as ever, despite being saddled with a by-the-numbers backstory of a son waiting across the border. As the antagonist, Jeffery Dean Morgan is suitably sadistic and gruff, but never becomes terrifying or iconic enough as a presence to justify how thin the character is otherwise. The fact that both characters, as well as the female lead, go completely unnamed until the final credits, perfectly highlights the film’s impersonal take on a story that should be anything but. Desierto seems destined to be a historical curio for future generations, an artifact of a dark chapter in American history that will hopefully seem distant and strange.

Author rating: 5/10