Film Review: No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land is a neo-western from director Conor Allyn. It follows Jackson Greer (Jake Allyn), a young man who his father, Bill (Frank Grillo) has big hopes for, insisting he goes to college, so he doesn’t get stuck in their small cattle ranch, which is in the middle of the land between the official US-Mexico border. However, things take a turn when a sudden confrontation between Bill, his older son Lucas (Alex MacNicoll), and a group of Mexicans attempting to cross the border, led by Gustavo (Jorge A. Jiménez). The chaos results in Lucas getting shot, and Gustavo’s young son Fernando (Alessio Valentini) dead.

The boy is killed at the hands of Jackson, who rushes in, hoping to help, but gets swept up in all the mayhem. He’s shaken by his actions, and Bill tries to help by telling a local Texas ranger, Ramirez (George Lopez) that he was the one who shot the boy. However, Ramirez doesn’t buy it, and when he goes out one day to talk to Jackson, he panics. Jackson ends up crossing the border on horseback, finding himself in Mexico, where Ramirez makes chase, as well as Gustavo, grieving the death of his son, and wanting vengeance.

While one may initially be worried that this is yet another story about a white person growing at the expense of a marginalized person or community, it seems like Conor Allyn and his younger brother Jake, who also wrote the film with David Barraza, are well aware of the optics. The film ends up spending more time in Mexico than it does in Texas with Bill and his wife Monica (Andie MacDowell). It also spends plenty of time with Gustavo, who goes through a journey of his own with Luis (Andrés Delgado), a hustler who seems more interested in satisfying his blood lust than justice.

While much of the film involves Jackson being on the run, it isn’t a movie that prioritizes tension, instead focusing on the characters, and their relationship to the world around them. While Bill and his family may not seem overtly racist, they clearly don’t share much sympathy toward the folks who end up trespassing through their land to reach the border. Spending time in Mexico, having to work and struggle for a period of time gives Jackson the opportunity to unlearn those instilled biases. And it doesn’t treat the Mexicans he comes across in simplistic or stereotypical ways.

The film is elegantly put together. Cinematographer, Juan Pablo Ramírez, captures the landscapes beautifully, and brings a warmth to the sequences in Mexico. The performances are also good from everyone here. Allyn is a solid lead, one who really grows on you as the film goes along, and he carries the film well enough, especially given how the nature of the story requires him to overshadow veterans like Grillo and MacDowell, both of whom are also great. Lopez does well here, even if his quirk of not being good at Spanish doesn’t really go anywhere.

The most powerful work in No Man’s Land undoubtedly comes from Jiménez, who takes the kind of character I’ve usually seen be sidelined in stories similar to this, and he imbues him with so much sorrow and frustration and complexity, and often without a ton of dialogue. The best shot in the film is one that involves him and MacDowell silently grieving in an elevator, neither of them realizing who the other is. While the film isn’t necessarily great as a whole, it has little gems like that moment that make the film compelling and interesting, and better than movies like this tend to be. I think its lack of urgency does detract from the overall experience, but it’s a perfectly solid and thoughtfully crafted film whose good intentions go a long way.