Jennifer Lopez Movie:

		List Price: $27.98		Label: VELOCITY / THINKFILM Salesrank: 7705 Released: January 29, 2008
		Our Price: $9.46
		Used Price: $6.58
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
BORDERTOWN (DVD MOVIE)

Bordertown Reviews:
Unbelievable
2008-05-09 - The movie was great but Jennifer Lopez character was hard to swallow.
Her acting wasn't good in this movie. I was surprised at Antonio Banderas' character. I didn't know that was him at first. Good movie!

So so
2008-05-06 - I worked in El Paso as a TV news photographer, so I'm somewhat familiar with those events in Juarez. I think this is definitely an important topic to make a movie about, but, as some of the other negative reviewers have stated, much of the dialog and acting is too over the top. All the heated arguments between Lopez' character and her boss back in Chicago, and then the tense personal arguments between her and Antonio Banderas about whatever problems had happened between them in the past, was totally unnecessary to the story, and only served as distractions from the main subject matter, the mass murder of women in Juarez -which in and of itself is dramatic enough, so why add all the silly dialog about "if you do this I'll give you the foreign correspondents job..." bla bla bla...

Another thing that annoyed me was the way in which they tried to blend into the story certain elements from real life, but those real life things are all chronologically mixed up. For example: She's talking to her boss about the Egyptian suspect the authorities had arrested, and later, they hear the Juanes song "La Camisa Negra" on the radio. That got me a little confused as to when this story was supposed to be taking place. The Egyptian guy was arrested in 1995. "La Camisa Negra" was released in 2005.

Also, When I worked in El Paso, I covered a press conference at the Cereso prison where the Egyptian guy spoke to the press -so extensively, in fact, that some of the TV reporters got annoyed, asking him, "How much of this do you really expect us to be able to fit into a 2-minute news story?" So, the scene where the police detective angrily refuses to allow the press to interview the Egyptian, is somewhat inaccurate.

Lastly, when Lopez and Banderas arrive at the scene of one of the murders, the way Juarez police confiscated her camera and didn't allow them to take pictures, is the opposite of how I recall their relationship with the media. Our CBS affiliate had a Juarez stringer who was always bringing back extremely gruesome closeup video of the cadavers. Police over there would actually give the media much more freedom to photograph crime scenes, to the extent that journalists were allowed to cross the yellow police lines and walk everywhere the detectives went. Not to say that was good, but I remember that's how it was.

Disposable women, disposable society
2008-04-18 - Loosely based on several of the many Ciudad Juárez murders, BORDERTOWN is two parts docudrama/political commentary and two parts suspense/thriller. Though the subject of the film is an important one, the movie does suffer from a few major flaws.

Most likely, you've heard little or nothing about the 15-year serial killing spree(s) in the neighboring Mexican cities of Juárez and Chihuahua. Probably you've read a short article, maybe buried in the back of the "international" section of your local paper, about the latest death toll. Maybe you've seen a few pieces over the years, each giving rise to an eerie sense of déjà vu: "Haven't I read this before? Didn't the police already catch this killer? Surely this is a different case..."

Between 1993 and the present day, at least 400 women, primarily employed in the maquiladoras established along the Mexican/American border, have been found dead. Raped, murdered, strangled, mutilated. Dumped like trash. Another 5,000+ women are reported missing. Most likely they are dead, but their families will never know, can never rest, because there is no outcry, no investigation, no justice. Government corruption, police incompetence, and international indifference have all conspired against justice. After all, these are poor brown women we are talking about. Disposable women in a disposable society.

BORDERTOWN attempts to tell the tales of all these women through the story of one girl, Eva Jimenez, a 16-year-old factory worker who is kidnapped on her way home from work, raped, and buried alive. Left for dead. Though her assailants - two men, gang rapists - thought they killed her, she survives and, with the help of two reporters (played by Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Baderes), tries to bring them to justice.

While I generally enjoyed the movie (as much as you can "enjoy" a movie about femicide), it does tend towards the melodramatic at times. The acting is generally adequate, though Maya Zapata is a standout as Eva. (So much so that I immediately hopped onto Netflix and put all her films in my queue.) Most of the melodrama is due to the script, rather than overacting. There are also a few plot holes, which I won't get into for fear of spoiling the ending. However, one is so large that you'll know it when you see it. (Just in case you don't, a hint: it involves the trial and the immediacy of Eva's testimony.)

Even so, BORDERTOWN is monumental film, in that it addresses an ongoing situation of gross human rights abuses that the mainstream media has largely ignored. Any time you can get A-list stars to sign on to such a project, it's a big f'in deal. And while the film itself isn't as rigorous in detailing the Ciudad Juárez gender-cide as I would prefer - the subplot about Lopez's childhood and her character's relationship with Banderes was distracting at best - it's still a good vehicle for getting the message out, for letting people know what is and isn't happening south of the border. The DVD extras, which include two documentaries ("Exposing the Juarez Murders: The Making of Bordertown" and "La Frontera - The Border"), as well as a "get involved" menu (the first time I've ever seen that on a DVD!) are particularly poignant and compelling. So while it certainly isn't a great movie - maybe a B-/C+ at best - it is still a movie that you, along with your friends and family (and Lou Dobbs, if you can compel him!), should see.

And, after the movie's over, don't forget about these women like the rest of the world. Use the resources provided to learn more, to take action, to get involved. As Eva Canseco explains in "La Frontera - The Border", we're all citizens of the same community; we need to protect one another, to care what happens to our neighbors, to act while we still have the agency to do so. The women raped and murdered, the men tortured into confessing - they could easily be you or I. Human rights abuses are not limited to "developing" or "third world" nations. Read the paper more closely (better yet, a feminist blog or two) and you'll be surprised to see what's happening in your own backyard.

A Great and Very Informative movie
2008-03-30 - This movie left me speechless and in amazement that we know so little about thats going on in other countries around the world. To think that these problems happen and makes you see that your life might not be as bad as you think. I applaud all the people involved in this project for trying to inform people and get this story out there. This could be the reason it went straight to dvd it was such a powerful and controversial story and since it had to do with NAFTA something the US made and as told in the movie wants to expand. It just goes to show you just as the Mexican government is keeping things from their people whats going on here that we dont know about???

Thought-provoking, talented film, despite confused NAFTA politics; a libertarian review
2008-03-24 - Hundreds (some say thousands) of women have been murdered in the Mexican town of Juarez over the years. Their raped and mutilated corpses scatter the desert. This is not fiction. The "women of Juarez" are real. Their murders continue to this day.

Who murdered them? NAFTA!

That's according to BORDERTOWN, a Hollywood "message movie" that tries to be entertaining as it preaches, and mostly succeeds. Its politics are so confused that libertarians, anarchists, feminists, Marxists, paleo-conservatives, anti-globalists, and Gibby the cat should all find something to cheer.

The film has a typical "message movie" structure. An Outsider investigates an Issue, educating us along the way. In this case, Jennifer Lopez is a Chicago reporter assigned to cover the Juarez murders. Her editor (Martin Sheen) rattles off statistics, sounding less like a jaded journalist than an activist/actor lecturing to us. Lopez dislikes the assignment because Mexico is a career dead-end. But after she relents, she reconnects with her Mexican roots, discarding her blond hair dye to accept her authentically black tresses.

Lopez learns that Juarez, just across the Texas border, is a creature of NAFTA. A town full of maquiladoras, factories that assemble TVs and computers for the U.S. market. Maquiladoras exist all along the Mexican side of the border.

How are maquiladoras to blame for the murders of women?

BORDERTOWN informs us that maquiladoras "hire mainly young women because they work for lowers wages and complain less about the long hours and harsh working conditions. Most maquiladoras operate 24 hours a day. Many women are attacked while traveling to and from work in the late night and early morning. The companies provide no security for the workers."

You see, factories are responsible for workers' safety, not only on the job, but while they're commuting. (And perhaps at home, too?)

Yet there are libertarian nuggets in this film. By morally obligating businesses to protect their workers offsite, this film admits that the state has failed in its core duty. And BORDERTOWN pulls no punches; its corrupt Mexican police not only fail to protect, they also cover up murders and frame innocent suspects.

So much for relying on state protection -- these women need guns! Yet when Lopez enters a dangerous situation undercover, she arms herself ... with rocks. Sic!

BORDERTOWN offers other libertarian insights. One rape victim/factory worker (Mexican actress Maya Zapata) says she'd rather live on her farm, but the government keeps raising taxes to push people off their land, pressuring them to accept low-wage jobs out of desperation. "We cannot pay the taxes, so they tell us, go to the border and work in the maquiladora. Make money to keep your land. But there is no money here. The government and the factories take everything. All the money is for them. For us, nothing."

Well, she gets $5 a day, so when she says "nothing," she presumably means wages are so low, she can't pay the taxes. Taxes raised not for revenue (people can't pay them), but to create cheap labor. Thus does the government collude with business (perhaps for kickbacks?).

Marxists call this "market exploitation," but libertarians will recognize it as "market distortion."

The U.S. government is also condemned, for not mandating worker protections in NAFTA. "The screams of the women of Juarez are silent because no one will listen," Lopez writes in her news story. "Not the giant corporations who make their profits from the labor of these women. Not the governments of Mexico and the U.S. who benefit from the free trade agreement. All the evidence points to the fact that there are many killers. A whole culture of murder that gets worse the more it's denied and covered up. Covering it up is less expensive than protecting these women. Everything is about the bottom line. And so the death toll mounts."

Lopez is right about there being many killers. "You want to kill a woman for any reason, you come to Juarez," a local journalist tells her.

Juarez is a bad town. Most slums are. And police rarely expend resources on poor victims. But this is an old story. It has nothing to do with NAFTA.

A U.S. Senator and the newspaper's corporate owner pressure Sheen to kill the story. They want to expand NAFTA to Central America, and don't want bad press. Sheen tells Lopez that corporate America's news agenda is "free trade, globalization, and entertainment." Lopez snaps, "It isn't free trade. It's slave trade. It's a goddamn scam."

She means low wages and no protections, yet she inadvertently has a point. Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne too opposed NAFTA, as a form of managed trade (i.e., a scam), saying, "Free trade can not be achieved through committee negotiations and lengthy regulations."

A Mexican industrialist tells Lopez, "I buy politicians on both sides of the border." State and industry collaborate in BORDERTOWN. Marxists see this as global capitalism, but libertarians recognize it as statist corporatism (i.e., economic fascism).

I recommend this DVD. It highlights important issues. The women of Juarez are real and deserve attention, irrespective of BORDERTOWN'S confused politics.

Special features include Jennifer Lopez accepting an Amnesty International award for BORDERTOWN at the Berlin Film Festival; a documentary about a murder victim and the innocent suspect arrested and tortured by police. (Most of the maquiladoras shown here are Asian -- Sony, Sanyo, Hitachi -- so why doesn't BORDERTOWN condemn the Japanese government?); and a documentary that follows a woman's attempt to illegally cross the border into the U.S.