Human borders regardless doing bad or good are visible with difficulties. When I think about Mexico, first associations are food (for example burritos), mariachi and sadly so many news about brutal murders. This movie is about Mexico and some good people (Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas) trying to find people involved in killing many woman workers from factories near border with USA. This is movie about huge deviation in Mexican society. Origin of this deviation is poverty in all aspects,mental, material, human... Mexican governments are solving this problem with military and corrupted police, without trying to deal with cause. Because of that you have " domino effects " on Mexican border with USA. We have two people putting their career way ahead lives. From mine point of view, it's stupid and wrong but this is moral victory for them. They are trying to do something impossible from their position but if it is possible to change position everything is possible. One life of good person is lost. Put your life in front of career, because career may trick you that it is life. Don't be tricked. When you realize career is not life, life can become your career. This movie is like life not so easy to watch, but good for thinking about...

It was sad to me when people on this site asked if Gandhi was a fictional character, when they thought Judi Dench in "Ladies in Lavender" came off as a "dirty old lady," when they thought Kenny O'Donnell in "Thirteen Days" was a fictional character to give Kevin Costner a part when the film used White House transcripts (I guess they just stuck Kenny's dialogue into transcripts?) - it was sad. But to laugh and give a negative review to a movie that tells an important story, whether or not it stars Jennifer Lopez, is awful and shows that there are people who are regulars on this board who are not just stupid. They're complete morons.This is based on a true story about murders of young women that have been taking place in Juarez, Mexico for years, with a large number of women have been raped and murdered or simply disappeared. The women work in the maquiladoras, 24/7 companies that employ cheap labor, usually women, and create disposable products. Apparently the women are disposable too. The women are normally attacked as they are going home.Jennifer Lopez plays a reporter who is assigned this story against her will but becomes involved in it, protecting a young woman who dug herself out of her own grave, and going undercover in a maquiladora herself to uncover one of the murderers.This horrible situation is not dealt with efficiently by the government or the police. In part, this is due to political pressure and the fact that mob and drug money is often involved in the ownership of the factories.The North American Free Trade agreement, NAFTA, was expanded in 1994 and provided new opportunities for the maquiladoras. This was an issue director Gregory Nava wanted to explore, and Jennifer Lopez, Martin Sheen, and Antonio Banderas signed on. Because of the R rating and the opinion of several focus groups, it was not released in theaters. It's not a great movie. As a TV movie, it would have been much better. It also doesn't look very expensive. I don't happen to think Jennifer Lopez is a horrible actress. Unlike some here, I thought her back story, shown in flashback, was very clear.This is an important story, made by sincere people. One can at least appreciate that they wanted to raise awareness of this issue. It's easy to sit and criticize a film; it's another to go out and make one. And maybe a few people will think about a rich country like Mexico - rich in minerals, tourism, manufacturing -- that pays people $3 to $5 a day and has a population that lives in poverty while the people that control the money send it out of the country. Is it any wonder they try to sneak into the U.S.? Anything is better than how they are forced to live. And nothing is done to help them. Nothing.

This movie is trying to shed light on an important subject, but the filmmakers go about trying to concoct a preposterously ridiculous story to do so. At no time did Jennifer Lopez come off as believable as a gritty reporter. (Spoilers) No, she runs around Juarez Mexico seeming to know her way around, unafraid of murderers, rapists, and corrupt government and/or elites all while supposedly speaking beginning Spanish. We are thrown a bunch of facts, some gruesome violence, and grotesque bodies - but acting and dialog doesn't hold weight. There are uneven scenes and poor direction in general. Martin Sheen has some light duty as a side character - interesting enough if limited. The movie has a decent premise, but script and screenplay need some major re-editing for better plausibility. Mildly worth passing your time if free viewing.

All these young women are being murdered in and around Juarez. Nobody knows who's doing it or why. (True enough, though not often noted in the American press.) The editor of a Chicago newspaper (Martin Sheen) sends an ambitious reporter (Jennifer Lopez) to Juarez to investigate the events and report back to him. In Juarez, Lopez hooks up with an ex-lover (Antonio Banderas) who now runs the fictional newspaper Sol de Juarez. His is the only local paper taking the wave of murders seriously, the others treating them as minor incidents, perhaps the result of domestic violence. This is also the view of the police, who don't want to stir up any local muck. So Lopez and Banderas run into obstacles all along the way, even when they take under their wing a young woman who has almost miraculously survived an attack.The movie suggests that the real culprits here are the American-funded factories that were built in the border towns after the passage of NAFTA. The girls who work in these sweat shops, the maquiladoras, are not worth protecting -- not at four dollars a day -- and so are expendable because there are always more lining up for the jobs.This is a simple-minded explanation of a revolting, complicated, tragic and fascinating social problem. Some men, somewhere, have learned that it is easy to rape and murder a young woman around Juarez, bury her body in the desert, and walk away from it. And the movie slips us a formula, like an an easily swallowed pill, along the lines of "B is a function of A." Plot aside, the development of events is confusing. I lost track of the identity of some of the characters and their motives. The movie never sinks to the obvious level of a stereotypical slasher film, though. It's ambition prevents it, and presumably the writer and director's taste. The action scenes are handled fairly well.The photography is a distraction. It's in high contrast, such that if, in a sunlit room, a figure moves into the shadows, it disappears into the blackness while the rest of the environment remains an eye-numbing glare. And the images are in saturated yellow, seeming to overheat all the surfaces and turn them grimy and even more squalid than they already are. At night, they are blue but the same effect is achieved.There's nothing wrong at all with the performances. Jennifer Lopez is no longer the sex bomb of yesteryear but she's acquired more character as an actress, still has that enduring mandible and cantilevered rear end. Antonio Banderas, I like. The guy isn't exactly handsome but has a face and demeanor that are at once masculine and sympatico. Martin Sheen may be a little weak, or perhaps it's his formulaic lines being shouted over the roar of giant newspaper printers. ("Incredible humanity.") I wish this well-intentioned film had been better than it is. I think it's a mistake to simplify complex social problems into a conflict between a good side and a simple, single bad side. But that generates an even more disturbing thought. Suppose the film makers were right to boil this anfractuous story down into its bundle of two oppositions? Suppose the average viewer is unable any longer to grasp the multivaried aspects of a wave of unrelated murders of young women? Or -- well, not UNABLE to grasp complexity, just unwilling to put out the effort to do so? How much easier to pick a villain and stick to it. How much more appealing to an impatient public. How much more commercial. Even if genuine ambiguity must be thrown out the window.