Pocha: Manifest Destiny

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Audience Member I really liked the main character Pocha played by Veronica Sixtos who gives a great performance. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review ronald h Michael Dwyer's "Hostile Border" (titled "Pocha: Manifest Destiny" in its Hispanic version) does a 180 on the usual Hollywood Mexican immigrant routine. Claudia (Veronica Sixtos), the immigrant in question, has to adjust to life in Mexico after being arrested in the U.S. and deported for credit card scamming. She's a pocha, a pejorative term for a Mexican-American who doesn't speak Spanish. Typically, illegal immigrants are portrayed as sympathetic in Hollywood films, but not in this bitter little indie feature. Claudia is petulant and laconic and just downright unlikable. She has few lines in this film longer than one short sentence. Instead, she stares implacably at everybody. It wears thin after a while. After her deportation, Claudia goes to her father's ranch in Mexico. The father, played by Julio Cedillo, disapproves of her, because of her criminal background and–we assume–because of her immigration to the states with his estranged wife. Claudia wants to lie around the house, sulking and painting her nails, but her father puts her to work mending fences on his ranch (symbolism, anyone?). Her pay is $10. "An hour?" asks Claudia. "A day," he responds. He's almost as non-talkative as she is. It must run in the family. Claudia hates working in the hot desert heat, and she pretty much hates everything else–except for Arturo, a friendly ranch hand who is hooked up with a slimy drug smuggler named Rick (Roberto Urbina). No big surprise: Rick enlists Caudia to clear the way on her dad's property for his drug smuggling operation, which needs a shortcut to the main road. He gives her wads of money, and he (of course) has sex with her. She's as bored as ever with the whole thing, but Rick has promised to get her back to the states after a few major drug deals. This movie is gorgeous to look at, thanks to Dwyer's skillful camera work. The performers fare decently well, considering the paucity of dialogue. I kept waiting for someone to finally make a speech. The main problem here is the lack of sympathetic characters. Sixtos, especially, is so arrogant and self-absorbed that you want to slap her out of her solipsism. She basically has the same dour expression on her face throughout the entire film. Without spoiling anything, I'll just report that things get fairly suspenseful in the final third, and the filmmaker incudes the requisite gratuitous sex and violence. This is one of those films that I kept watching even though I didn't like it much, and it didn't like me. But I do give Dwyer credit for doing a twist on the stereotypical Hollywood illegal immigrant theme. Here, the immigrant is no innocent victim. She has nobody to blame but herself. She supposedly redeems herself at the end, but I wasn't buying it. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member This movie was so bad, we were laughing and making jokes by the end of it. The only saving graces were Julio Cesar Cedillo, Jorge Jimenez, and Maria Del Carmen Farias. It was so disjointed in parts. One minute you don't like this guy then, next thing we know, you're swxing him up. Why? No progression of attraction or anything. If it was a setup, there was no clue, not even a quiet indication. Victoria Sixtos was expressionless throughout the whole film. Except for smiling maybe twice, every other expression was the same. Scared, angry, confused, lustful, deadpan face. If the character was supposed to be dead inside, then she did a great job. Great job on the directors part as well. Perfection. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Audience Member OMG this movie. It is totally not what I expected. The performances are amazing, and this movie is so freaking smart. It totally plays with feminist theory Gloria Anzaldua's whole idea of a THIRD SPACE - not here, not there - but an inbetween. The lead of this film is totally in that in between space, and whatsmore - she's an ANTIHERO. I'm so grateful to watch stories about women of color that are not about us being heroes or selfless people ....instead, women of color as FLAWED and PROBLEMATIC. Plus, this film is sexy as hell. I was super into it. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/02/23 Full Review Audience Member Veronica Sixtos commands the screen... first time Director Michael Dwyer is one to watch... Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 09/29/18 Full Review Audience Member What a pile of trash. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Pocha: Manifest Destiny

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