A Day Without a Mexican (2004)

The premise for this movie is actually very interesting. The title alone drew me to watch this movie. What the viewer is left with is cheap production, boring idiotic "jokes" and mundane repetition of news scenes with bad acting. Some of the actors seem like they were picked off the streets or from community college acting classes.The movie doesn't draw the viewer in, instead it psychologically irritates and alienates the viewer by butting unrelated scenes together (which one would think might have some overall meaning in the end, however this is not the case). Viewers are more so alienated by the constant fake news cast scenes. The movies banks all it's value on the fact that viewers will be able to relate to ignorant racist white Californians. Many scenes of this nature are played out to exhaustingly boring exaggeration.Don't waste your time on this movie as it has nothing to do with the reality of the Hispanic/white culture of California.

Really, it is a good film that seeks to raise questions while supplying some facts. Of course it asks you to take a leap of faith, but doesn't 90% of the films you watch ask the same thing of you? What we should ask is why is there such a virulent backlash against this thoughtful film? This film ranks with Bamboozled as a satire of the continuing racial fears that plague our country and how they are enacted and replicated through the mass media. Like Bamboozled, it also explores the lengths that minorities often go through to suppress their own identity. The film operates as if it was a documentary, and, it that mode, helps a critical viewer to think about the continuing representation of groups as minor or marginalzed in our society.

There is a strong critical view of "A day without a Mexican" easily because it defends illegals and mocks Americans. Now, I love the fact that they are making fun of those piggy Americans and there selfish ways without giving a chance to let the Mexicans in for a change. Though one may be expecting a large amount of fantasy and bizarre weirdness-"A day without a Mexican" although has some good messages such as 'where your heart lies' and 'give peace a chance' there is no excuse to poor quality. I was expecting the film to be funnier, a black comedy when really you see the melodramatic overtones of human drama and a positive film. The plot is way to political, most viewers don't even why the Mexicans disappeared in the first place. The message is hard to understand and in order to truly like the film you pretty much have to BE an illegal. The poor quality of the film shows everyone individual in America as a sick, spoiled bastard. This may be true but how it's portrayed is so poorly done. If the film is also very slow and dramatic, the slowness of the film goes on so much that one wonders "is this still the film?" The plot, I admit, is interesting but only good enough for a short film; not an entire movie.

The politics of the immigration issue aside, this is just a bad piece of film-making. As a pseudo-documentary, it is completely one-sided and this is painfully obvious in the cartoonish, 2D characters portrayed. All the Mexicans are innocent, hard working, unappreciated folk carrying the weight of American society on their backs. All of the Anglos are stupid, racist, lazy and greedy oppressors. This aspect plays well to supporters, but immediately alienates (no pun intended) everyone else. Michael Moore made this same misstep in "Fahrenheit 9/11" when he characterized pre-war Iraq as a happy place of playing children, chocolate rivers and gumdrop smiles. Even those of us against the war know that was far from the case and it turns you off as a viewer. Okay, so beyond the flawed message, it all comes down to the basics. The script is horrible...what is Spanish for "horrible"? The dialog is flat and corny. There is no consistent thread to keep your interest, instead the film just jumps from present to flashback to fantasy, so much so I couldn't keep track of where I was or which character I was trying to follow. And for a film that caught my interest because I kept hearing how "funny" it was,I don't recall laughing once. Production value is another problem - a low budget film can sometimes be obviously low budget and that is the case with this film. Finally, the acting is, minus some exceptions here and there, very poor and that makes it even harder to try and connect with any of the characters. Poor showing, mi amigos, poor showing.