Review of The Bastards (2008) by Nikolai E — 03 Mar 2011

I saw this in a Kino catalogue and I LOVE the title, so I checked it out on Netflix. And you know, for the first half-hour or so, this film was pretty compelling as nothing more than a naturalistic day-in-the-life of illegal workers on the edge of survival, and if it had maintained that tone of day-in, day-out routine exploitation, it could have been a pretty effective statement about illegal immigration.

Unfortunately, it degrades into a half-assed mexploitation 'Funny Games' for the last hour for no reason that I can ascertain, and all the authenticity and entertainment value goes out the window.

The film is so much more interesting when it's just calmly observing desperate people than when it's dealing with a message that's both shallow and overwrought using cheap shocks and mistaking tension for dead air.

Don't bother.