5/5 Neat little thriller
  by Hitchcock Fan (Long Beach, CA)
El Norte meets Pulp Fiction (sort of, but that's a simplification). Caught this little gem at the LA Film Festival today. On a shoe-string budget, director Amat Escalante and his co-writer brother Martin create a tension-filled piece that melds genres and offers it's share of shocks. Undocumented immigrant dayworkers take a very wrong turn on the road to their American dream with harrowing results for all concerned. Brave performance by Nina Zavarin as a disaffected divorced/separated mom whose numbed life may suddenly be derailed by her encounter with the two other protagonists. Escalante has flair for visual composition both indoors and out in the Southern California urbanscapes where this tale unfolds. Recommended.