Student Academy Award winner Cary Joji Fukunaga makes his feature directorial debut with this epic dramatic thriller following a Honduran teenager who reunites with her long-estranged father and attempts to emigrate to America with him in order to start a new life. Inspired by the director's firsthand experience with Central American immigrants, Sin Nombre opens to find dejected teenager Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) biding her time in Honduras while dreaming of a brighter future. Upon reuniting with
the father she hasn't seen in years, Sayra seizes the opportunity to finally make her dreams a reality. Her father has a new family in the United States, and he's preparing to travel with her uncle to Mexico, where they will then cross the border to freedom. Meanwhile, in Mexico, Tapachula teen Casper (aka Casper, played by Edgar Flores), has gotten caught up with the notorious Mara Salvatrucha street gang. He's just delivered a new recruit to the Maras in the form of desperate 12-year-old Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer), and though the youngster's initiation proves particularly rough, she adapts to gang life rather quickly. As involved as Casper is with the Mara, he does his best to keep his relationship with girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana Garcia) a secret from the gang. Just as Martha encounters ruthless Mara leader Lil' Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) and suffers a grim fate at the hands of the gang, Sayra and her relatives arrive at the Tapachula train yards and prepare to rush a U.S.-bound freight train with a horde of other immigrants. Rather than attempting to gain access to the cars, Sayra and the rest of the immigrants decide to ride atop the train. Little do they realize that their lives are now in danger, because Lil' Mago has recruited Casper and Smiley to rob the immigrants as they make their way to the United States. When dawn comes and Lil' Mago makes his move, Casper finally decides to stand up to the tyrannical gang leader. Now, as the train winds though the Mexican countryside, Sayra's only hope of surviving the journey and making her way to a new beginning is to align herself with Casper as he flees from the most feared gang in Tapachula. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
The actors, particularly Flores, have a documentary reality about them. Their reactions to most of their predicaments, even the ones given away too easily by the script, are real in the most human sense.
Brutal, wrenching and filled with desperation and meanness, Sin Nombre signals a major new talent in writer-director Cary Fukunaga, who never flinches while telling a story so grim and sad it moves beyond tears to numbness.
This is a stunning feature debut for director Cary Fukunaga. The story borrows from road movies and crime thrillers, but the scenes and situations vibrate with authenticity.
It's a drama, a romance and a thriller, but make no mistake - Sin Nombre pulls no punches in delivery a raw, powerful film that shrugs aside genre convention.
Spellbinding and nailbiting at the same time, "Sin Nombre?s" climax chillingly evokes the fable of the rabbit crossing the river on the crocodile?s back. Even amid such fleeting hope, its bone-deep fragility proved impossible to shake.
The gangster part of the movie is riddled with cliches, but strikes gold with its depiction of immigrants on a train headed north. An excellent debut by a Japanese-American director.
Cary Fukunaga makes a strong impression with his debut feature, a visually rich Spanish-language thriller which borrows the conventions of the western and applies them to a world of gang brotherhoods and travelling immigrants in Mexico.
It's a tribute to the visceral impact of the staging that the film retains its grip despite becoming somewhat predictable, while thematically it's the usual cycle-of-violence hand wringing.
Sin Nombre is a spry, humane account of the hardships encountered on the Mexican immigration trail, whose violence never feels exploitative, for all that it may be hard to watch. Highly recommended.
If you've ever got your hands on a second-hand set of Operation, you'll know how it feels to watch the latest addition to the slum drama stable. Most parts are present and correct, but there's definitely something missing - a heart, perhaps?
It's the scenes of immigrants heading north atop moving trains which resonate the most - a testament to Adriano Goldman's brilliant, expansive cinematography.
The rules of the gang are spurious enough to make us realise that this isn't a world of good against evil, it's a world of adolescents who've got no reason to grow up.
A well-made melodrama with firmly rooted Shakespearean underpinnings concerning a gang-member on the run (Edgar Flores) after he murders one of his own, and how he forms an unlikely relationship with a teenage girl (Paulina Gaitan) who has her sights set on getting across the American border. What director Cary
Fukunaga does so well is make us sympathize with both characters involved in the story, despite the fact that they are both aspiring illegal aliens who are knowingly breaking the law. The story is slightly overdone in sections, and sometimes it does not know how to pace itself, but overall it still comes out a winner somehow, someway. The last twenty minutes of the film are particularly thrilling if somewhat predictable. Flores turn as a tortured man scrambling just to survive is absolutely arresting, and the relationship he forms with Gaitan's character is well-managed. As said, sometimes it is over-directed and over-acted, but the story structure remains strong throughout. Not as good as some critics would have you believe, but still a fine movie worthy of one's time thanks to its careful handling of illegal immigration and sympathizing with those that do it.
This movie was really good. It showed the true side of being in a gang. Everyone in the gang says they are brothers forever and will help each other out whenever it's necessary, then they go and beat/betray/kill each other. It was really disturbing to see the little boy, Smiley, become a gang member because he thought
it was cool. He was so young, and was already killing people. It was an awesome movie. Really sad, but really good. The bond between Sayra and Willy was cute, though she was a very, very stupid girl. Jumping off a train to follow a member of a brutal gang? Yeah, not the smartest idea. I really like the movie though. It was sooo good.
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