Heartland Film Festival: Tejano

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The U.S.-Mexico border spans 1,900 miles across four states: California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Border towns, places where political and cultural identity collide, have sprung up along this massive stretch of land.

Residents of border towns only need to look across a river, street or through a fence in order to see their foreign neighbors. Your perspective on freedom changes when you are required to answer questions at security checkpoints before you are allowed to visit the other side. Border towns can be a welcome respite for tourists who want a quick dose of cultural infusion. They also, sadly, offer an eye opening and graphic representation of the different levels of prosperity between cities in such close proximity to one another.

Javi (Patrick Mackie) is a farmhand who lives with his stoically comedic grandfather Arturo (Roland Uribe) in a border town in South Texas. When he’s not driving a combine or yelling at border crossing illegals for damaging property, Javi likes to hop over to Matamoros, Mexico where he can buy cheap prescriptions for his grandfather, get friendly with the local border patrol agents and spend time with the town’s pharmacist, Lorena, (Mayra Leal) who also happens to be his girlfriend.

Javi has been saving money so that the couple can relocate to San Antonio. When Arturo gets sick, Javi has to dip into his savings in order to pay for Arturo’s medical expenses. In one of the funnier scenes Javi is nickel and dimed by the local shaman who is “curing” Arturo.

Desperate to keep his promise to Lorena, Javi seeks advice from his friend Duke (Brian Bogart), an American border patrol agent. Duke suggests using the remaining savings to buy and then flip a shipment of cocaine. The plan is not foolproof and Javi's situation goes from bad to worse. Javi is forced to seek out Lorena’s cartel connected brother Adelio (Adrian Gonzalez) in order to quickly replace his lost savings. Things don’t go according to plan and Javi is forced to run in order to save him and those he loves.

Directed by David Blue Garcia, Tejano is a beautifully shot film that starts out with a riveting premise that keeps you invested in the story and interested in the characters. Scenes depicting the natural landscape are breathtaking and haunting. I wish the movie had focused more on Javi’s relationship with Arturo since those moments between them provide the film with some gravitas and humor. However it loses some of its focus in the final act when the film relies heavily on a Matrix-style shoot-out between Javi and the cartel sent to kill him.