At first, “Los Bastardos” looks to be a day-in-the-life look at a pair of illegal Mexican immigrants, two souls randomly plucked from the ranks of the day laborers gathered in the parking lot of a California Home Depot. One is a teenager, the other his older brother, it seems, and it’s not until well past the halfway mark of the film that we learn their names: Fausto (Rubén Sosa) and Jesús (Jesus Moises Rodriguez), respectively. We first see them in the movie’s long, static, opening shot, walking towards the camera along a concrete riverbed. This almost hypnotic introduction is dramatically punctuated by assaultive opening credits, all gnashing soundtrack and blood-red background. It’s a microcosm of the film to come.
This is writer-director Amat Escalante’s second feature, and like his first, 2005’s “Sangre,” it counts Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas (“Silent Night,” “Japon”) among its producers. Escalante’s visual and dramatic pacing echoes Reygadas’ as well, employing carefully composed, mostly static long shots which can try a viewer’s patience, but also allow the characters to be observed almost clandestinely, catching small moments that might ordinarily be edited around.
It emerges that Jesus and Fausto have been given money and a shotgun by some unseen gringo, and after a day’s work helping to lay out a foundation, they rest up for the task ahead. Then the film shifts gears, and we meet Karen (Nina Zavarin), a suburban mom who, once her teenage son is out for the night, breaks into her crack stash. In a superbly creepy and tense scene, Jesus and Fausto invade her home while she sleeps on the couch in front of the TV.
Without giving away too much of what follows, let’s just say that it becomes clear that these two aren’t simply victims of poverty and circumstance forced into criminal acts; they’re actually pretty nasty, sadistic guys, at least Jesus. Uncomfortable confrontations ensue, leading to a couple of the more shocking, sudden, moments of violence in recent memory. At the same time, as the plot twists, it becomes less believable, perhaps because we’re never really given any sense of who any of these characters are or why, exactly, they’re doing what they’re doing. The vagueness of the backstory (the Mexicans have a female relative back home who’s going blind, while Karen has an ex-husband or –boyfriend who bears her a grudge) has a purpose, but sometimes feels like willful obscurity.
“Los Bastardos” is still a mightily effective film, and the second I’ve seen this year (after “Sin Nombre”) to deal with illegal immigration in a way that’s grounded in reality but refuses to use technical raggedness as a badge of authenticity. Cinematographer Matthew Uhry uses the widescreen frame to emphasize not only the open landscapes, but the distances between the people who inhabit them.
2008 release, 90 minutes, not rated, in English and Spanish w/English subtitles, viewed on DVD.
Grade: B+
Comments