Undocumented (2010)

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The plot revolves around a small group of American grad-student filmmakers who are documenting a group of Mexicans illegally crossing the border into New Mexico.  A thinly woven scene attempts to explain how these students gained access to this group of soon-to-be immigrants. It appears that director Chris Peckover didn’t feel that was important enough to the story for that detail to be believable.

In the process of documenting the crossing of the Mexico/New Mexico border, the entire group is captured by a militia of self-proclaimed American “patriots”.  The group of young filmmakers are then forced to document the activities of the militia who wish to send the newly captured footage to the Mexican press in hopes of scaring away the border problem.

Oddly, the militia’s purpose for existing was never really made clear. They have camo-cloth-masked leader named “Z” (played by Peter Stormare, a.k.a. the dude who shoved Steve Buscemi into a wood chipper in Fargo) whose daily duties appeared to revolve around spouting racist, pro-America propaganda to his clan, while they protect the bunker that apparently no one knows is there.

They do have a little black-market organ trading business, though that seemed like a thinly-veiled excuse to work in a “the donor is still awake!” organ removal scene.  I’m gonna spoil this one for you: they don’t show anything, and the patient was apparently the world heavy-weight champion of pain management. He exhibited about as much pain as someone getting their back tattooed.

As you can imagine, a bunch of stuff happens, a good number of people die (both good-guy and bad-guy Americans as well as a few Mexicans), but ultimately, none of it seemed to matter.  You don’t get to know any of the characters well enough to care whether they live or die, and many of the relationships were so ill-conceived that you’re not sure who you’re supposed to like.

The only character that held my attention was “Jim”, played by Kevin Weisman, but only because I spent a period of time trying to remember what I recognized him from. It turned out to be the TV show, Alias.

I’m sure this movie will make it to the theaters on (at least) limited release. I watched it via Comcast’s “Same Day As Theaters” on demand. Either way, if you’re hell-bent on seeing this, just wait until you can see it for free.