Watching a film as amateurish as this makes you appreciate much of the quality-control we take for granted, even in stinkers. Like the difference between watching actors say lines and characters conversing. Suddenly all the world really does look like a stage. Child actors, bless them, it’s a tough gig. But the performance of the lead here is am-dram at best. To be fair to her, so are most of the cast, child or not. Their inability to get anywhere near the orbit of attainment is amplified by a script to whom plotting is an as-yet undiscovered country.
US treatment of those “suspected” Latin Americans it detains and deports is a hot-button public debate, yet ground-level awareness of its full scale is, I suspect, sorely lacking. That gives it immense cinematic potential. It is wholly unrealised here. Amateurism isn’t grounds for any offence in itself. But most offensive films are better made than this.
D-
Alex Crisp : Not Another Critic 