Writer: Ezekiel Lee Zhiang Yang

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Watch this if you liked: "Erin Brockovich", "Traffic", "Maria Full Of Grace"

This guy, Latino director Gregory Nava, seems to love making films about specific real-life events affecting the Mexican diaspora in America. I admit I can't take J. Lo seriously in any film - well, perhaps that Selena biopic (which Nava also directed) in which she was convincing, if only because she had considerably less attractive features than she does now. However, how should we take this indie film, when she has produced it herself and gained recognition from Amnesty International for it?

I guess I'll have to give you the skinny first. The opening sequence states that U.S. companies are using the North American Free Trade Agreement to open maquilodoras - assembly factories which use cheap Mexican labour (mostly women) to mass-produce products for easy export back into the U.S. One border town is Juarez, noted as the second most important in the world (60,000 transits daily) after Tijuana.

Along comes our protagonist - Lauren (Jennifer Lopez), a career-minded Latino journalist from Chicago who's eyeing a big job but has to take on a dubious assignment first. This would be to investigate the high incidence of rape and murder in Juarez - something the government is reportedly covering up. The story then becomes a struggle for Lauren to protect an escaped victim, Eva (Maya Zapata) with the help of an ex-colleague, Diaz (Antonio Banderas).

While we can give full marks to J. Lo for apparently taking a genuine interest in the political issue at hand, the translation to film is problematic once you get past the theme. Not only is it two-dimensional (indies usually are when it's a labour of love) for positively blaming the murders on very specific parties, it doesn't have substance of direction. The scenes are messy, the acting contrived. The situation is made worse if you consider this as an isolated story which needed a strong universal element, in order for audiences to readily identify with the tragedy of the slain women. Lopez could've aced this, with Lauren being the power-hungry American journo who wanted fame but found meaning in her work. Sadly her role and the victim's are both underwritten, not to mention the many detracting bits which do nothing for the story, the biggest being the part of Antonio Banderas!

I've no doubt this should have been shot as a documentary instead of even risking it seen as a J. Lo vehicle for cementing herself as a serious actress. "Bordertown" has good intentions but is flawed by inaccessible specifics that struggle to make us care.

Cinema Online, 23 September 2008