Give "Desierto" credit for this: There has never been a more appropriate time for a tense thriller about Mexican immigrants avoiding the murderous advances of a gun-wielding American lunatic.
Overview
A group of Mexican emigrants attempts to cross the Mexican-US border. What begins as a hopeful journey becomes a harrowing, bloody and primal fight for survival when a deranged, rifle-toting vigilante and his loyal Belgian Malinois dog chase the group of unarmed men and women through the treacherous borderland. In the harsh, unforgiving desert terrain, the odds are stacked firmly against them as they discover there’s nowhere to hide from the unrelenting, merciless killer.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
A generic thriller that happens to be wrapped in political packaging. That packaging is sometimes more interesting than the thrills themselves.
Subtlety sits this one out.
Ugly and ham-fisted where it should be exciting and edifying, "Desierto" comes up short both as blood-soaked entertainment and as a blood-stirring polemic.
There's been a surprisingly wide range of works with extra weight in a deeply polarized year. Desierto is the nastiest of them all, but it's also the shallowest.
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