Not quite what you expect. Sebastian Junger & Nick Quested’s documentary (for National Geographic) looks to be yet another largely sympathetic look at the flow of Central American migrant caravans (that controversial word used here by the participants) as they make their way North thru Mexico to the U.S. border. But the film turns out to be equally concerned with the standoff between Mexican Drug Cartels and the changing government response (police, military, political) used to slow them down. Stopping the cartel (or for that matter, the migrants) seems futile. It’s more than this 90 minute film can intelligently handle. And while new footage of migrant ‘families’ on the hoof is well-handled and personalized, the film barely touches on root issues (failing home economies/unceasing drug demand in the States) or take any sort of long view/big picture stance. Only a hint of what happened when 70 years of PRI rule, and their defacto compromise with the drug lords, was replaced with hardline enforcement campaigns that backfired to the cartel’s advantage. A intersecting tragedy of tough talk playing out thru various hopeful administrations. Skimping on ‘Cause’ to highlight ‘Effect, we leave the film with much the same attitudes & sympathies we had coming in. Nearly as ill-informed as the young migrants we meet blindly traveling North without a plan/without a clue.
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