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Movie Review: 'No Man's Land'

Immigration drama lacks weight to carry heavy real life subject.

By Sean PatrickPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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I'm really sad that I killed that child. Look at me soulfully stare a the ground.

The illegal immigration drama No Man's Land has good intentions going for it. And that's about it. This story about a budding sports star who accidentally kills a Mexican child crossing the Mexico-Texas border, lacks the strength to carry such a weighty subject. The problem is achingly bland leading man Jake Allyn. Allyn captures an appropriately deer in the headlights manner for his character, Jackson, but that's about it.

Jake Allyn stars in, and wrote the screenplay for, No Man's Land in which he plays Jackson Greer. Jackson is on the verge of being signed to play for the New York Yankees minor league team and has a really good shot at making it to the major leagues. And yet, for reasons he does not articulate well, Jackson would prefer to stay on his family ranch on the border of Texas and Mexico. A ranch the family is on the verge of losing.

The plot of No Man's Land kicks in when a good hearted Coyote named Gustavo (Jorge A Jimenez) is helping a group, including his two young sons and elderly mother, cross the border near the Greer family ranch. They happen to be crossing just as Jackson's dad, Bill (Frank Grill0) and big brother Lucas (Alex MacNicoll), have gone to the border to retrieve cattle that got loose the night before when several other people illegally crossing the border cut their fence.

Not able to communicate due to Bill and Lucas not being able to speak Spanish and Gustavo not being fluent in English, the stand off between the two sides is tense. Bill and Lucas have shotguns at the ready and Gustavo is begging them to let the group pass. This is when Jackson arrives and his distracting and unwelcome presence leads to tragedy. The least experienced with a weapon, Jackson is frightened and nervous, a recipe for disaster.

When one of Gustavo's sons uses Jackson’s arrival as a distraction and stabs Bill in the shoulder, Gustavo goes for Bill's gun which goes off and shoots Lucas in the gut. Then one of Gustavo's other sons attempts to run off and Jackson makes the mistake of shooting the boy in the back as he ran away. All of this occurred within earshot of a nearby Texas Ranger, Ramirez (George Lopez), who arrives on the scene in the immediate aftermath.

When Bill tries to lie and say that he shot Gustavo's son, Ranger Ramirez sees right through the lie. The following day, Ramirez goes to pick up Jackson for the murder of the boy and Jackson takes off on his horse and heads across the border. You might assume he was trying to escape but he's not, he wants to travel to the boy's home city and return his lost wallet to his grieving father, even if it means Gustavo killing him in revenge.

From there, Jackson briefly takes work on the ranch of a rich Mexican family and learns that their life is a lot like his life, a lesson I guess he needed. The lessons throughout No Man's Land are rather shallow like that with very little in the way of substance. The movie wants to be a heartening tale of redemption and forgiveness against the unforgiving background of our immigration debate but it's mostly a slog through muddy platitudes.

Taking on a topic as touchy as border crossing takes a great deal of respect and nuance and that is lacking in No Man's Land. It's not that the movie completely lacks nuance, but rather that it's so shallow and pointless that any nuance ends up lacking any meaning. Jackson is not entirely unsympathetic but Jake Allyn's performance is vacant and since he's the lead, that's a pretty significant vacancy.

Allyn not helped by constantly playing opposite far more interesting actors. Frank Grillo as the grizzled ranch dad is electric in his few scenes. Meanwhile, in a crime the film cannot make up for, Andie Mcdowell is criminally underutilized as Jackson’s mother. Undoubtedly the most engaging actor in the cast, Mcdowell is stranded and mostly forgotten once Jackson is on the run in Mexico.

Even well known comedian George Lopez has a stronger and more interesting presence than Allyn whose bland handsomeness never gained any weight. Lopez is not a dramatic actor by trade but he is at least charismatic enough to stand out against the bland backdrop of No Man’s Land. He’s also the one actor of Spanish heritage who is actually given a character that isn’t either noble to the point of sainthood or violent to the point of tortured cliché.

  • No Man’s Land opened in theaters and On-Demand rental on January 22nd, 2021.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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