646f9e108c American human rights activist James Rhodes, arrives in Tijuana to help oversee union elections at a factory owned by a US company. He soon discovers that things have been happening around the town with people disappearing or being shot in a tunnel across the border in the States. He suspects it has something to do with the upcoming election. Along with local police detective Claudio Castillo, he starts investigating the case. Jim Rhodes is a human rights worker in Tijuana for a few days to make sure that union elections are fair at a maquiladora owned by a U.S. corporation. In quick succession, the police assault the strikers, the bodies of 27 peasants turn up in an abandoned tunnel that has caved in, and two U.S. teen bikers are missing. As Rhodes pokes around and speculates on connections among these events, he&#39;s beaten up, warned off by a drug dealer&#39;s attorney, and given varying degrees of help by the U.S. State Department rep, the U.S. Trade rep, and an honest local cop. It&#39;s always about money, but whose is at stake and how cheap is Rhodes&#39;s life? I&#39;ve read other comments here which say it&#39;s also like &quot;Traffic.&quot; Ditto that for mewell. Don&#39;t know who these writers are (Colin Greene and Robert Ozn) but they are truly awesome. Tight plotting, terse cop-talk tied to characterization and impassioned issue oriented story-line without preaching. Love the way the writers tie the diverse story lines together at the very end. I never guessed how it was all related and they really knew how to keep me hooked. Jeff Daniels gives a very cool,understated performance. Love Portia DeRossi, very sexy without trying. And of course James Spader is always fascinating to watch - wish he had more to do in this flick. I saw this in Europe on a DVD. How come this thing is not out in the USA?! I won&#39;t write about the contents, others did that already - I&#39;ll write about the setting of the movie.<br/><br/>I was very pleased to find a US movie dealing with multinational corporations, unions, murder, police crime and environmental pollution in the form of a crime mystery that really works. This, I mainly attribute to the well balanced way everything was handled: Multinational corporations pay very low wages, but on the other hand, without them there might be even less jobs in developing countries. Trade unions help workers to more rights and higher wages, but on the other hand the multinationals just move on when the wages rise, etc. pp. OK, drug lords and crime play a big part in this movie, too - but I am glad these things are not depictedbeing cool or glitzy, like in other movies. What I don&#39;t understand is the IMDb label &#39;Thriller&#39; - the German word &#39;Krimi&#39; (crime movie) seems to fit better. And like some German crime movies, the crime is only useda vehicle for all the other trials and tribulations happening to the characters.<br/><br/>Watching all the street scenes and how people like the human rights guy might actual live in Mexican cities (where being abducted seems to be an almost daily experience) was much more believable and &#39;real&#39; like, for instance, in &#39;Man on Fire&#39;. Thumbs up for that.<br/><br/>To find such a multi-layered view of things makes watching this movie a pleasure - although the topic is very sad. Unfortunately this was a straight to pay TV/video release in Germany, so not many people will have the chance to watch it.<br/><br/>The only thing I missed was a real motive for the one shownbeing responsible in the end. Maybe watching it a second time might help here.
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364 weeks ago