Rating: D
Dir: Gabriela Tagliavini
Star: Sharon Stone, Rosemberg Salgado, Giovanna Zacarías, Billy Zane
a.k.a. The Mule
In hindsight, I’m really not sure what I was thinking here. It must have been a moment of madness when I added this to my Tubi watchlist. I blame this synopsis: “An American journalist searches for her missing brother, amidst the drug-running, violence, and human smuggling that plagues the US/Mexico border.” But more or less from the opening scene – right-wing journalist Sofie Talbert (Stone in a bad wig) preparing to ambush a politician about her voting record on immigration – I had a terrible sinking feeling that I knew exactly where this was going to go. She’s going to experience what illegal immigrants go through, and end up becoming all sympathetic to them, isn’t she?
Fast forward 75 minutes, and Sofie is, entirely as expected, shrieking at a border patrol officer. “Have you ever walked out the door and gone over the border and looked at what’s happening? Because I have. They’re innocent people over there. Have you seen the suffering that they’re enduring to have what we have, what we just take for granted every single day?” The entire film is basically that kind of thing being yelled at you. You are expected to empathize with a heavily pregnant woman, trying to sneak over the border before her offspring drops, so she can have her anchor baby here. This legal immigrant says, fuck that shit, end birthright citizenship. So, yeah: this film was not exactly in line with my political sentiments.
Which I could forgive easily enough, had it been entertaining. But apart from being painfully predictable, it’s largely boring and dull. Sofie’s brother, Aaron (Zane) is an aid worker down in Mexico, who suddenly vanishes. She heads down there in search of him, where she meets his colleague Rafael (Salgado), who schools her in the ways of the border, coyotes and illegals. But first, they need to waste time falling for each other, in scenes which had me tapping my wrist and going, “HELLO! ABDUCTED BROTHER!” They then cross the path of evil boss Juanita (Salgado), who alternates between torturing Aaron and kicking Mrs. Pregnancy in the stomach. I liked her. Not for the kicking, just because she’s the only character not interested in lecturing the audience.
The search for Aaron leads Sophie to be stuffed inside a fake oil-tanker, in order to be smuggled into the States. But wouldn’t you know it, they stop at exactly the farm where Aaron is being held. What are the odds? Inevitably, this leads to a race for the border, where evil vigilantes lurk on the far side. But after they (more or less) make it to safety, the plot takes a bat-shit crazy twist that changes everything. Well, okay: it’s still crappy liberal propaganda. Let’s just say, the alternate title becomes of particular relevance. It doesn’t come close to saving proceedings, make no mistake. It just offers a flavour of what might have been, had they fully embraced the melodrama. Hollywood. They’re not sending their best, are they?