Undocumented (2010)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Undocumented is about a couple of grad students making a documentary about illegal immigrants crossing the US border. But things go wrong when the vehicle that their in gets jacked by so called "Patriots". Chris Peckover did a great job as a director. Throughout the movie i didn't really feel connected to the characters due to dumb decisions. But they also made some good ones. The acting is pretty good. It is a decent time waster but nothing to special. I would say check it out if you think it sounds cool. I wouldn't buy it on DVD unless its a good deal. It is on Netflix Instant Watch.Movie Reviewer, Dean Nixon

Undocumented may be the most inspirational thriller put on film in this century. In fact, it was so good I had to buy it! If you are an American who has pride in our own culture you MUST take the time to enjoy this absolute gem of a film. Not only does it have its thrills, but it's also hysterically amusing without trying too hard, or being dishonest to the subject matter and ruining the fun, yet dark mood. The ONLY downside to it is the utterly self righteous "documentarians" whom you will have to suffer; but maybe they get what's coming to them in the end? You'll be rooting for it, but you'll have to watch to find out. Get your chimichangas ready and beware of extra fiesta sauce and piñatas.

As much as there is to criticize about "Undocumented," I have to admit it does a very audacious thing, at least for a horror picture made on the caliber and budget of cheapsploitation classics like "Baker County" and "I Spit on Your Grave": it forces you to actually turn the camera eye on yourself and your beliefs on illegal immigration, whatever they may be, and then confront the very real, but often unseen, after shocks of those beliefs.Pretty boy and girl Scott Mechlowicz and Alona Tol head up a group of five scarily naive grad students who are doing their thesis on the plight of illegals and their often fatal journeys across the border by...get this: actually aiding them in their trek. If you can get past this admittedly foolhardy and absurd premise, the rest of the film is actually *easier* to swallow, and that's what makes it so much harder to watch and, by turns, to look away from.On arriving on New Mexico soil, they are immediately ambushed by a gang of paramilitary "patriots" led by "Z" (an insanely chilling Peter Stormare who remains masked for virtually the entire film). What follows is nothing we haven't seen before in the "Hostel" films: ritual humiliation, torture, and full-on carnage, but...this time it's not for the lark of a few rich and twisted businessmen to get their rocks off. No, these sadists actually have a point to make and, for me at least, this really catapulted this snuff box of a movie into a very discomfiting and visceral space in my brain."Undocumented" isn't the first horror film to shove hatred into our line of sight and then force us to ingest it, but it does it in such a convincing stylized nightmare way to make it difficult to shake off. More than a few people I've talked to have had a rough time forgetting this film purely because much of Stormare's didactic prattling has inadvertently (or not) come from their own mouths at one time or another. It's disquieting in a way few horror films manage to achieve because, unlike high-handed circle jerks such as "Funny Games," you can see where the villain's bile originates.In addition to Stormare's tour-de-sicko turn, Mechlowicz continues his run of quietly breakout performances: from "Mean Creek" to "Gone" to this film, he seems bent on forcing you to look past his air-brushed looks by turning in very convincing portraits of deeply-troubled, morally conflicted heroes and villains. The fact that he effectively 180's you from believing his character a pompous a-hole to someone you feel genuine pity for is pretty amazing in itself.Look, this isn't Citizen Kane. It's not even Citizen Ruth...newcomer Chris Peckover doesn't have the chops of Alexander Payne or Orson Welles. Not yet, anyway. Still this isn't your big brother's crappy little torture flick from the turn of the millennium. No, this one is a bit too true to life for something you'll forget that easily. Even if you wish you could.

Picked randomly from the Pay-Per-View menu, UNDOCUMENTED is my surprise find of the year. I hesitate to call it my pleasant surprise, because while the discovery of a true horror gem flying under the radar can really warm my cockles, once the action here gets rollin', I was feeling more cold chills than warm fuzzies.A group of young filmmakers in the process of making a documentary about illegal immigration across the Mexican border are apprehended by what we (and they) think are the police. In the trailer, we are told by an off- screen tormentor, "Whatever you think this is…it's far worse." Unfortunately, for our young heroes…he's not lying."What starts off as a fairly routine shot-on-video, found footage movie quickly turns into a visceral and all-too-believable nightmare of American patriotism run amok. Our heroes and the immigrants they were following have been captured by a group of extreme nationalists who are looking to save our country by cleansing of the scourge that's ruining it. In other words, undocumented Mexicans sneaking over the border.What really drove this home for me was how possible every horrific image or idea you're subjected is. As a country, we seem to have lost our minds on this subject. The inhuman acts going on right now in Arizona are not that far off from what's happening at the abandoned slaughterhouse in the movie. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if something like is actually was going on…right now. Our villains here are not raving madmen. On the contrary, they are well spoken….charming, even…guys you'd probably love to have a beer with sometime in other circumstances. These men spill poison from their mouths, calmly. Rationally. Indeed, there might be a nugget of truth to it; a truth twisted into something hideous, but truth nonetheless. And part of me started to believe it. Just a little….teeny….tiny…bit.Therein lies the horror.