NEW Sin Nombre (DVD)

Sin Nombre (Cary Fukunaga, 2009)

It was early in the year when some critics (most notably Turner Classic Movies daytime host Ben Mankiewicz) started proclaiming Sin Nombre the best film of 2009. (I just checked Huffington Post for his year-end list, and yes, it's still at the top of the list.) And Sin Nombre, the first feature-length film from Cary Fukunaga, is a very good film, but the best of 2009?

The story focuses on two teenagers, Honduran Sayra (Never on Sunday's Paulina Gaitan, a Mexican actress) who comes to Mexico to be reunited with her father, and Mexican gang member Willy (Provocacion's Edgar Flores, a Honduran actor--see what they did there?--in his second film role). Sayra and her father want to hop a train to America to start a new life, while Willy and his friend Smiley (Kristian Ferrer, recently of Days of Grace) are just trying to get along gettin' along as members of the infamous Mara Salvatrucha. Or they are until an incident of shocking violence leads Willy to reconsider his place in the world.

The film's trailers, and many of the reviews, focus on the train journey, which is a bit disingenuous (and something of a spoiler), since the train journey occupies, at most, the final third of the film. Sayra and Willy's stories don't come together until then, which gives the first part of the film something of a disjointed feel. Not bad, mind you, just disjointed, as the movie ping-pongs back and forth between them. It's all very well-done, very solid filmmaking with a compelling pair of stories and a lot of heart, but I can't help comparing it to Cidade de Deus, which did much the same thing with a much smaller budget and a stable of amateurs. Again, it's not that Sin Nombre is a bad movie in any way. In fact, it's a very good movie. It's just not Cidade de Deus, though it comes close. *** 

First time director Cary Fukunaga rode the rails himself in preparation to tell this heartbreaking story of a family on their way to the United States by hitching on top of a dangerous train. The narrative flows between the life of Mexican gangster Willi, whose secretive relationship with a city girl puts a rift between him and his "homies," and an introduction to Sayra, whose father has just been deported from the U.S., and plans to take her back with him to the family he has in New Jersey. A series of tragedies bring them together and force them to go on the run from Willi's former gang. The pacing is intense, and yet in the editing there is ample exploration of the setting, of the atmosphere and flavor, and a very strong sense of the wide variety in the geography and local culture encountered on the trek from the southern border of Mexico to Texas. It is beautifully shot, and brilliantly cast. The lead actor in the role of Willy (Edgar Flores) does such a remarkable job that it is hard to imagine he is playing a part -- even more astonishing given that this was his very first role in film. Paulina Gaytan as Sayra is equally convincing and compelling. This is a very impressive debut film -- and I have every expectation that we will continue to see excellent work from director Cary Fukunaga in the future. Highly recommended.

A lot of gangster movies are romanticized or just over the top. This was not one of them. A simple, wonderful, and horrifying gangster movie about the issues going on in Mexico and South America. Watch it watch it watch it.