I had expectations for 'Sin Nombre'. The film first came to my attention at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. A few girls at the festival swooned over the director of Sin Nombre, Cary Fukunaga. Later back in London, I started to hear a little good word of mouth, not an overwhelming amount but enough. So when it came to its last day on the screens at the Curzon Soho (it is already showing at Prince Charles Cinema so that means it must be leaving) I decided to head down and check it out.
'Sin Nombre' was a disappointment, a film that I wanted to be good and at times thought it was going to be good, but it never quite raised its head high enough. It is essentially a road movie, told about those who head from the South of Mexico all the way up to the USA on top of the freight trains that make this journey. On one particular train is a young Honduran girl, Sayra, with her father and uncle, and a gangster Willy. Sayra takes a shine to Willy after he brutally kills a follow gangster who is trying to rape her and also previously responsible for the murder of Willy's former girlfriend. This sets the gang off looking for Willy and inspires Willy to smuggle Sayra into the US.
The film wants to be the next 'City of God' or any other number of slum films that have been increasingly popular (and might of climaxed with 'Slumdog Millionaire'). Indeed 'Sin Nombre' has violence and a lot of poor characters but it lacks the spark of the best of the genre. It has nothing to offer or anything new to say about the state in which many people in the developing world still live, and such the film is largely predictable.
We know who the good guys are (the better looking ones) and we know who the bad guys are (the not so good looking ones). We are asked time and time again by cliched gestures to fell sympathy for Willy as he befriends Sayra (though we never see him take responsibility for his past actions). And of course we know how the story will end as the only way Willy ran redeem himself and send Sayra to the US is of course to die.
We have seen it all before.
