I really do not like gangster movies, but Sin Nombre is something of an exception. It’s not that these gangsters are more interesting or more human – they are just like all the other gangsters in movies: raping women, killing people, beating the shit out of people, grunting, pointing guns at people, and looking intensely and repulsively ugly, with bad hair and really bad skin. And their dialog is the usual crap-fest as well – Gang boss: “Why did you lie to me hommie?” Gang member: “I didn’t lie.” Then ‘gang member’ gets the living fuck beaten out of him by twenty guys. Just your typical dialog sequence … from every movie gangster of the last 40 years!

So what sets Sin Nombre apart in this miserable genera? It’s the predominant low-key, human story of people escaping to America, in which the gangsters play more of a “framing” role. They represent what America has done to the third world, the same America that all the main characters are trying desperately to get to. The hero of the story wants to escape the gang life, sort of, and when events kind of accidentally push him in that direction, he jumps in rather halfheartedly, but knowing that he has just signed his own death warrant. In the process, he meets the family migrating from Honduras, through Mexico, to the USA, and he and the daughter wind up making a go of it. Most of the movie is their process of running, hiding (from gangs and border patrols,) and trying to make it to the promised land.  It is an interesting story, with fairly decent dialog, and good acting. The two leads don’t really have a relationship – they barely speak to each other – but nevertheless you are pulling for them as a couple, and when they finally start warm up to each other, it’s actually rather convincing.

I recommend it!