I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Imagine hating your own race so much that you are willing to fight against them. This is what Adam Fields life is like in The Gatekeeper.Adam Fields is a border patrol officer, whose goal is to prevent Mexicans, whom he hates with a passion, from illegally crossing over into America. He is so passionate and committed to his cause that he decides to go on an undercover mission (proposed by a Mexican Hate group he belongs to) where he wears a GPS device so that they can understand how Mexicans cross the border. ***SPOILERS***I really liked the journey of the main character. His acting was incredible in the sense that in the beginning you could relate to and begin to rationalize his hatred of the Mexican culture and people, but at the end you really saw a change in him.Despite the great acting on John Carlos Frey's part, this movie did not rank high in my book. I would describe this move as dull, boring, and slow. It had a good concept, but the writing was terrible. It could have been really suspenseful and entertaining when Adam was faced with making drugs for a year to work off the trip. The writers also could have developed the part where Adam is discovered as being a cop. Sure, this would make the movie a little more "Hollywood" but a movie should at least provide some entertainment value rather than just trying to abstractly make a statement. Overall, I give this movie a 6 out of 10, strictly because of the acting and message.

I actually thought this movie was really good. Especially if you consider they filmed it in 18 days with only 200,000 dollars, as I was told by the J.C. Frey, the Director/writer/main actor, when they screened the film here at the U of A, in Tucson. The story is mostly accurate from what I've witnessed living in Tucson for 5 years and Phoenix for 10. So many Mexicans die crossing the border, their families are split in search of better jobs, or they are coerced into criminal labor that I think a movie like this puts the issues at the forefront. Hell, the migrant group (secondary actors with little or no speaking roles) were real Mexican workers who the film crew hired for realism. I think that's really cool.And for someone living in Arizona, where the previews at theaters are often preempted by "Methlabs and kids don't mix" anouncements, the story of Adam/Juan Carlos being forced to work in the methlab is all too real. Just because this is an independent movie and therefore limited to resources doesn't mean it's bad. The secondary theme of Adam rediscovering his Mexican roots is very powerful and also a very prevalent theme in the southwest, especially.

This movie has had a lot of favorable press from Hispanic audiences. The local (Tucson) media has been kind to it. A work of art it is not. So the question is whether you pay attention to the message, or get turned of, like I did, with how it was delivered. We definetly need good movies about the subject of Mexicans flowing into North America. This is not one of them. Once again we learn that actors should not write, direct and star in their own vehicles; as it just leads to a myopathic product.Amateurs can do great work but almost everything about this movie is C grade. The bad guys all have one expression: self satisfying smirks. All of them must have gone to the Simon Legree school of villainous acting. I would have almost preferred it if they had gone to the Snidely Whiplash graduate school of delightful self parody! And when they misbehave it's in spades, so we can really loathe them. Speaking of Simon Legree there is an Uncle Tom's Cabin kind of simplicity to the movie. There are no shades to the characters, all are one - dimensional. We are forced to like the victims and hate the victimizers. Frey decides to make his character an angry self loathing bigotted caricature, so that in the end I didn't care if he was redeemed, because he was now an angry other loathing bigotted caricature! Has he grown? We never find out, but in the cliches of these kind of movies we are to presume that he does. An interesting twist is that the movie is in English with Spanish subtitles. I assume Frey did this to attract an Anglo audience. It would have worked better the other way around, so that the plot could have had a Mexican rhythm to it, and thereby somewhat masked it's faults.

The story line is one that appeals to me, being a resident of the Southwest. I have heard every argument pertaining to illegal immigration and kind of stand in the middle of the two sides brought up in this film. In this film, the main character is a self-hating, half-Mexican, border patrol officer. He loathes the illegals with all of his might and makes sure everybody is aware of how he feels (even his fiance, who, why she likes him, I have no idea). The man is a lousy human being. He associates with a racist group that is trying to defame the Mexican people in every way it can. They decide that our main character will go undercover to expose how the illegals come into the country (as if nobody knew). How this will bolster their cause, I don't know. Well, he will make the trip and he will alter his view of these people that he once hated and see that their lives are much harder than anything he has had to deal with. The film is not terrible, but it is far from great. Some scenes are really good, but others are just eye-straining bad, which is understandable for a low-budget film. The plot does strain credibility towards the end, and then some. However, if you are interested in seeing a film dealing with Mexican-American relations, well, this is pretty good, well, it is not that bad.