Review of A Day Without a Mexican (2004) by David H — 22 May 2004

What happens when all the Mexicans disappear?!?!? OMG, no maid service or oranges on the side of the road. No painters standing in front of Home Depot. OMG.

All hell breaks loose. NO MEXICANS.

Blah. Sorry. The movie really was not that great. [I]A Day Without a Mexican[/i] really could have been great, it was just made poorly. I couldn't tell if it was shot on DV, or film. Some of it looked okay, but most of it looked like shit. The acting, with the exception of the lead, Lili, were pretty bad.

The concept, I have to give credit for, is awesome. It really is just a bunch of propaganda, but it's amusing for the most part. The idea got old really fast, and the comedy just dropped to a halt in the middle of the film, and decided it wanted to make a bunch of points about how we need immigrants and the Mexicans, which is all good. We do. But like I say in the next paragraph (I wrote that one first :)) the film really needed to be one type of film not a bunch. If it were a mockumentary, it could have easily addressed the issues it had while maintaining its comedy, rather than stopping the flow of the film to insert little facts about Mexicans, and their influence on California.

[b]I would also like to clearly state the film is not a mockumentary like I was told quite a few times.[/b] If it was a mockumentary it would have been much better. The film was not presented as a documentary. Not at all. It is a narrative film, just like any other film you're likely to see in theaters at this moments. It had elements of a mockumentary, and like I said, would have worked very well as one, but it wasn't. It started off as one though, with one interview, then they abandoned the idea for the most part it seemed, which is stupid. The film didn't know what it wanted to be. It would randomly have interviews in the middle of the film, and state little facts.

I hope I don't sounds like a racist asshole right now. I'm not. And I guess how you read the review will decide what to make of me. Anyway. I'm not racist. Nor am I an asshole (I hope).

I looked the film up on imdb and apparently, it was a short first, and I bet that short is about ten times more awesome than the feature is. This is an idea for a short. A half hour would be perfect.

[i][b][COLOR=Red]A Day Without a Mexican[/COLOR][/i][/b]: C-.