Border Incident (1949)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Good movie but grossly overrated

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Anthony Mann's dark and violent thriller is often termed noir, but, it's more a hard-boiled crime drama. Done in semi-documentary style (complete with stock footage and narration), the movie starts off as a simple story of Mexican braceros who cross the border both legally and not (as Jack Webb's Joe Friday would say, "That's when the law gets involved!").Ricardo Montalban plays a Mexican law enforcement agent (his white collar hands give him away at one point) who works with an American agent played by George Murphy to sting the coyotes on both sides of the border. Things get interesting when head honcho Howard DaSilva comes onto the scene (his 2nd lieutenant is played by another Noir vet - Charles McGraw). Montalban is suave as ever, but DaSilva steals the show (something he often did) with his smiling but evil presence. There are some brutal and nasty fights that are extremely effective (the quicksand bits, not as much). Watching the film 60 years later one can't help but grimace at the epilogue where there is peace and safety at the border. No matter what one's political views are, it's a sobering message.

Although the Film is Bookended with Typical for the Time, Government Propaganda Containing Smooth and Convincing Big Brother is Looking Out for You Verbiage Coupled with Elegant Aerial Photography of the Fertile Farmland So Important to the Grocery Stores of America, the Rest of the Movie is a Dark, Dismal, Depressing, Violent World of Cut-Throats, Victims, and Villains on Both Sides of the Border. Director Anthony Mann Pulls No Punches and Along with John Alton, His Noirish Collaborator, Unleashes a Timeless Tale of the Human Trafficking of Desperate People by Greedy and Exploitive Criminals.This is a Downbeat Story that at its Core is Gut-Wrenching and Intolerable, but Continues in Various Forms to This Day. MGM Finally Made the Descent Into Social Consciousness and Film-Noir by This Time and Delivered a Gem of a Commentary with Very Little Restraint. Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Howard DeSilva, and Charles McGraw All Give Good Performances, but it is the Visual and Violent Template that Surrounds the Prescient Story that Remains and it's Bloody and Filthy Residue Resides in the Subconscious Long After the Movie is Over.

Mexican and American agents team up to crackdown on those taking advantage of illegal farm workers. The film starts with hokey and superfluous narration explaining the premise of the film. It then tracks a groups of Mexicans as they illegally cross the border, with Montalban as an undercover agent among them. It is quite dull and looks drab. It perks up a bit in the middle, but the basic story is too uninteresting to hold one's interest. Murphy, the affable dancer, seems miscast as a tough American agent. The cast includes Bedoya, who uttered his famous "stinking badges" line the year before. Despite its short running time, the film drags because the plot has no flow.

/Border Incident/ is successful both as a tale and as a window into 1949.The drama takes us to unusual places and situations. It has a fine range of characters. Following the number one good guy, we visit Calexico, California, a border town, we follow a truckload of illegal workers, and in their barracks we see them ponder their low pay and abusive treatment. Following the number two good guy, we see the world of deals in fake ids, management of the flow of illegals, and, ta daaa, a ring of thieves that kills illegals returning to Mexico for the wad of bills each has in his pocket.The opening exposition is straightforward, almost pedestrian. Typically 1949. Once the stage is set, "BI" changes from documentary to drama, moving forward like a play.It bothered me that the number one good guy, (Ricardo Montalban), sometimes goes out of character to augment the exposition. Would a government agent, undercover as a bracero, speak up when one of his group needs medical attention? Hardly. Would he be the one to politicize the workers in the bunkhouse? Hardly. More likely he'd keep his head down and his mouth shut. Still, the lines get delivered; the audience gets to hear them. Not ideal, but it works. As a drama I rate it: five stars.As a window on the past, Border Incident is quite fascinating. They didn't have cell phones! Both governments were against the illegal flow of workers! Ah, the good old days. NAFTA had not displaced a flood of subsistence farmers. The Mexican government had not published the infamous "Guide For The Mexican Migrant", the pamphlet which helps one cross illegally (take lots of water) and live in the US inconspicuously (avoid domestic violence -- picture of a man slugging his wife).In 1949, according to BI, US law enforcement officers were honorable people who made an honest effort to do their jobs! Mexican, the same! The cynicism (realism?) of 2009 is not present. Plenty of food for thought in the time travel aspect of Border Incident. Eight stars.Overall, 6 stars.