600 Miles (2016)

Laid back approach to exciting drama that gets where it's going to very slowly and quietly. For the most part though the director keeps us distant from the characters and the action. Unfortunately this limits our involvement.

I liked this movie. It's good for washing you off Hollywood stuff once in a while. The camera behavior differs from the habitual and leaves you pondering and doing your own interpretation in a variety of moments. This different take leaves you in the edge of the couch sometimes! It also shows how easy it is for a stupid young man to buy loads of guns and how easy it is for a young man to choose the wrong path.

You'd be better off reading the plot of this somewhere and saving yourself some time. But if you like watching different people driving vehicles for extended periods from a passenger's perspective, you'll love this. The makers were obviously looking for some kind of real-time realism by keeping the camera lingering on scenes where nothing important happens, where a person is just thinking and driving. This kind of reminded me of car interior scenes in early Tarantino films (the only ones of his worth watching). However, they were more stylish and involved action and purpose.In this movie, the okay acting is spoiled by the pointlessly long lingering shots in vehicles and elsewhere. Check out Sicario instead if you're looking for a Mexican cartel movie and avoid this one.

The son of Mexico's prominent filmmaker Arturo Ripstein, makes a debut like a few, with a big cinematic crime thriller that talks about humanity and it's advantages and disadvantages through the smallest workers of each band, the one of the crime (a Mexican drug cartel) and the one from the justice (ATF), showing that none of them are evil or good, they are just acting from their human behavior. There is not a big plot and a big twist, as it more focused on it's principle themes, the film shows an agent that get caught in a nasty situation when a young criminal he is following gets to apprehend him and the relation they create in a long travel the criminal has to do to show him to his boss. That's it, the interesting part is how the director takes this simple actions to go further, approaching the substance of his film with delicate affection. With a calm rhythm and performances well directed (Tim and Krystian develop and incredible chemistry), this film gets to the point it is looking for. The cinematography is clean, very natural. Maybe it is not for everyone and less the mainstream audience but it will keep them in their sits with a couple good but breve shootouts as it is no intention to look for an action flick position. Deep, meaningful and beautiful. One of the best films Mexico produced this year.