Movie Review: Sundown

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent art house film that in its own captivating way keeps you on the edge of your seat. 

At first the story of this movie feels very simple. A man loses his passport and is stuck in Mexico unable to go to his home country. However, as the movie goes along, we find nearly everything we thought we knew about what was going on to be completely destructed, leaving us to question the validity of everything we see and hear. We are left with many questions and this movie becomes a mystery film. It is not a mystery film in the regular sense, where we are interested in finding out who done it. Instead, we are trying to find out what is going through our main character's mind and why he is doing any of the things he is doing. Tim Roth's performance is captivating in how little help it gives in this department. He is acting like everything he is doing is the most natural thing in the world and rarely appears less than confident about his decisions. Yet Roth's performance being so subdued is just what makes it so captivating and makes us want to solve this mystery all the more. Because of his performance and because Michel Franco is often rather low key none of the reveals are played like dramatic moments but rather simple everyday occurrences. This makes these moments have a dark uneasy feeling that is perfect for the story this movie is telling. While I won't give too much away, I will say while this movie answers some of these questions it leaves others unanswered giving us a lot to think about on the way home from the movie theater. This is also a beautiful looking movie, often visually resembling exactly what many of us would like to dream a vacation to Mexico would be like. This idyllic look (which is helped by the slower pace of the early scenes) contrasts perfectly with the darkness of the story and makes the movie all that more effective and disturbing. 

On the downside all the characters except our main character are rather boring and devoid of much personality and the romance is especially bland.  

This is a very engaging movie that keeps one guessing every step of the way.