Review – Bordertown

This might have been a better movie with fewer big stars in it. Jennifer Lopez in particular is distracting in the lead, doing a better job as herself than as her character. And that’s a shame, because this movie has an important story to tell. The movie’s thesis is somewhat complicated: NAFTA made cheap manufacture of consumer goods for the U.S. market a particularly lucrative business in Mexican border towns such as Juarez. Women who flock to the factories in search of work are easy prey for serial rapist/murderers who waylay the workers when they’re trying to get home after a late shift. And of course the police and evil capitalist overlords want it all hushed up so as not to interfere with business operations. Enter a crusading journalist (Lopez) who finds a woman who miraculously survived an attack but must now be protected from her assailants and the authorities seeking to silence her before the story gets out. The picture develops third act problems as the filmmakers try to plot a course between an ending that’s too happy and an ending that isn’t happy enough. Mildly amusing