Quentin Tarantino’s last few films have crept closer to cinema’s theatrical roots. Sequences occur in contained rooms, recalling the claustrophobic, object-driven narrative environment established by the physicality of the stage. These scenes are dominated not only by the director’s trademark dialogue but also by an assured language of compositional details, which guide our eyes through the frame and divulge information with a meticulous sense of craft. Tarantino’s detractors are bothered by his compulsion to bloat his works with references to cinema’s long, colorful history, as well as an occasional penchant for comically distorting his vested tone. But after recently having the opportunity to re-watch Inglourious Basterds, it became clear that the work overall was more significant than the handful of lame gestures that prevented me from outright embracing it. A filmmaker calling attention to himself is often irritating, especially when he uses dialogue to inject his own opinion of what he’s created. But this isn’t, and shouldn’t be, anything but an unfortunate stumble along a journey that’s far more complex and rewarding than the singling-out of that gesture would imply.

The Hateful Eight is Tarantino’s most confined feature yet, which initially calls into question his use of the 70mm format. Upon first blush, the decision registers as an arbitrary homage to the golden age of American Westerns. While it is that to some degree, it’s also a method to capture minuscule details in the expressions and appearances of each duplicitous character.

The film begins in the early stages of a Wyoming blizzard as John Ruth “The Hangman” (Kurt Russell, channeling The Duke) nears the end of a journey to collect his reward, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Along the way, they encounter two stranded individuals who Ruth reluctantly adopts as passengers. The first man is the clever and cruel Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a bounty hunter we learn fought in the union army during the Civil War and the closest thing the film has to a lead character. The second scoundrel to be happened upon is Chris Mannix (a viscerally animated Walton Goggins), who identifies himself as the newly appointed sheriff in the town of Red Rock, where the entire ensemble is headed.

The four arrive at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a cramped, one-room lodge where they meet the remaining faces that make up the titular hateful eight. Bruce Dern’s Sanford Smithers was a Confederate general during the war. He has made the trek to Wyoming in the twilight hour of his life hoping to learn how his son was killed. John Gage (Michael Madsen), is a reserved, weathered cowboy who is almost certainly hiding something. Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth, chewing scenery in the best possible way) is a sly Englishman who claims to be Red Rock’s new hangman. Last but not least is Bob (Demián Bichir), the suspiciously gauche steward purporting himself as an employee of Minnie, thus the caretaker of the haberdashery in her absence.

It’s easy to argue that the narrative in which characters trapped in an inescapable setting are driven to face one another has been cinematically exhausted in decades prior. But Tarantino’s perspective on popular hatreds harbored throughout American history is strangely essential and unpacked with a necessary dose of self-awareness. He illustrates the tight-knit relationship between prejudice and contempt by procuring a tonal delirium punctuated by comic terror. Underneath lines of dialogue, which are programmed to register as humorous, lie disturbing implications about who our characters are and what they represent. At first, animosity is personified only through verbal slander. When tensions begin to rise, Mobray decides to split the room in half, sending Confederate sympathizers to one corner and supporters of the Union to the other. Later on, as viewers familiar with the sensibilities of Tarantino would predict, this animosity is emulated through the graphic mutilation of flesh. The segregation, however, isn’t the first instance in which folly manifests itself physically.

A percentage of those who see The Hateful Eight will be crushed by the weight of unflinching cruelty that man is capable of. But the film, circumventing all expectations, has the audacity to end on a note of coarsely drawn optimism. We’re shown the worst sensibilities of the soul through bloodied eyes, and as the tumult begins to dissipate, it becomes clear that someone’s hatred eventually had to be compromised. In a sea of gore with no redemption in sight, a subconscious shift in mindset embodies what is perhaps the most vulgar step toward progress ever captured on film.

Quentin Tarantino‘s really got his hands full, huh?

Following the director’s recent comments regarding police brutality—“I’m on the side of the murdered,” he said at a New York City rally on Oct. 24th—police unions across the country, including the Border Patrol and the Fraternal Order of Police, have called for a boycott of all Tarantino films, including his upcoming snowy western The Hateful Eight.

Tarantino’s been defending his stance on the issue, claiming he’s “not a cop hater.” The murder of a New York police officer, Randolph Holder, just a week before his appearance at the controversial protest, didn’t help quell the fiery national debate that quickly erupted around the director’s comments.

Fighting tooth and nail for his right to speak publicly against police brutality is surely the last thing the widely beloved director was planning to do in the final weeks leading up to his eighth feature film, but a shiny nugget of good news has arrived today in the form of a new, awesome trailer for The Hateful Eight.

The movie’s had a rough road—if you remember, it almost didn’t get made at all when the script was leaked to the public by one of star Bruce Dern‘s people (that bastard!). Tarantino scrapped the project in a fit of rage, but thankfully for us he changed his tune. Perhaps most members of law enforcement won’t be coming out to watch the film in “glorious 70mm” this Christmas like the rest of us, but maybe the latest trailer will compel some of them to show up in disguise.

The Hateful Eight stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Bruce Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen. Here’s the official synopsis:

Set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff. Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces: Bob (Demian Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all…

The Hateful Eight drops on Christmas Day, but only in the 70mm format. It releases wide on January 8th on all formats.

No one likes a comedy that isn’t funny. There is some unspoken law, an unwritten edict, that it is better to make a terrible drama than it is to make a terrible comedy. In the former, you can appreciate the sentiment, commend them for their intent, and pardon some pretty heinous (though not all) acts of bad filmmaking. However, when you’re stuck for 90+ minutes watching one bad joke after another, we all suddenly become far less tolerant. For whatever reason, you don’t get brownie points for not being funny, no matter how hard you try.

But perhaps that is the fatal flaw in Dom Hemingway, Richard Shepard‘s latest indie comedy–it was trying too hard. Allegedly, the movie is a raunchy comedy about a convicted (and socially demented) safecracker, recently released from a twelve year prison stint as he seeks to receive compensation for keeping his mouth shut. Yet from the opening scene, where Jude Law recites an impromptu Song of Solomon to the glory of his penis, the film reveals itself only as a visual record of failing humor–the jokes are offensive, crude, and often blindingly stupid.

One is almost tempted to blame Law for this extended thespian ego-trip, seeming to relish his own personal two dimensional madman. That would be the case, if it weren’t for his self-conscious performance throughout. With every clever insult, every fist fight, and every act of screaming defiance against the world at large, the character seems less and less plausible. Law seems to lose momentum as the film continues, or at least the gaps in his performance become increasingly obvious. The bottom line is that Dom’s character doesn’t suit Law from the beginning, (who otherwise is a pretty good actor), and the role may have been better if played by another actor.

This brings us to the film’s second major problem: its melodramatic, bipolar plot line. The blame can’t be laid entirely on Law when the writing is so poor and the story so contrived. The whole thing is about a no-good scoundrel who sees the error of his ways and reforms, yet his sincerity is never convincing, either before or after the transformation. While some of the jokes were quite funny, and some of the dialogue good (particularly when Dom confronts a former employer), the movie is more concerned with convincing us of Dom’s insanity than developing anything else in the plot, to the point that it all became incredibly awkward.

Dom Hemingway suffers from multiple personality disorder, shifting back and forth between crude, thoughtless comedy and a sentimental morality play (a la John Bunyan). In one scene Dom is on the verge of attacking his former employer, ten minutes later he’s strutting naked through an apple orchard, to express how upset he was over his earlier actions. One scene he’s smashing goons in the face in the midst of a daring escape, the next he’s rolling on the ground in front of his wife’s grave as he indulges in an emotional breakdown. There was little tonal continuity, and the back-and-forth between debauchery and sentimentality was forced and artificial.

Much about the film feels like a crude parody of real life. One of the few enjoyable scenes is when Dom walks out of prison, streamers and toilet paper flying out of the windows behind him (think Zero de Conduit). The costuming is also one of the few positives of the film. Dom’s beautiful suit and crazy pointed elf boots leave a definite impression. Unfortunately, these odd stylistic perks don’t save Dom Hemingway from failure. It’s crude, affected, and worst of all, not funny.

When approaching my critique of Machete Kills—Robert Rodriguez‘s second entry into the eponymous character’s bloody B-movie saga that started with a fake trailer and continued in 2010’s Machete–I made the firm decision to not deny my inner 9-year-old that was having an absolute blast in the theater. Sure, I could poke and prod at the film’s cheap-o special effects, poor acting (only in some cases–there are strong performances here), and asinine plot, but wouldn’t that be missing the point? To be distracted by the film’s “faults” (many of which, like in other Rodriguez offerings, imbue the film with a sense of big fun) would hinder me from mining Machete Kills‘ many riches–spectacular violence, gleefully shameless cameos, tasteless zinger-happy dialog, a bad-ass anti-hero, and a villain who is more fantastic than he has any right to be.

Machete (Danny Trejo) is recruited (against his will) by the president of the United States (Carlos Estevez, a peculiarly familiar face…) to stop a maniac Mexican warlord (a scene-stealing Demian Bichir) from launching a nuclear strike on Washington D.C. He’s been promised–if he’s successful–U.S. citizenship and a clean record. On his action-packed mission, he encounters allies and enemies both new and old (all played by a bucketload of A and B-list celebs) and wreaks blood-splattered havoc along the U.S.-Mexican border. The killing spree leads Machete to the mastermind behind it all–a diabolical tech wizard played earnestly and hilariously by an on-point Mel Gibson.

Again, I’m not going to deny my inner child in my critique, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give the film’s flaws a pass. I acknowledge that Rodriguez’s game isn’t to make movie Mona Lisas, but even if we play by his rules, he fumbles the ball quite a bit. A lot of the gags–including a lot of the one-liners Trejo unenthusiastically mutters (“Machete don’t text”)–aren’t funny, period. In an awful scene, Michelle Rodriguez–playing Machete’s old ally, Luz–sniffs him (after he’s gotten busy with a girl hours earlier) and says she smells “fish taco”. Lady Gaga, Cuba Gooding Jr., Antonio Banderas, and Walton Goggins play the same character (an un-cleverly conceived villain called El Camaleón), and with the exception of Goggins (he’s good in everything), the cameos are an utter waste, amounting to a parade of idiotic posing (Gaga) and a lame joke of against-type casting (Gooding Jr. and Banderas) that’s clichéd and isn’t funny for a second. Sofia Vergara plays a sadomasochist who yells and shoots bullets out of her tits and vagina, a gag that was much funnier in Austin Powers 16 years ago.

The good news is, the major players in the film–Trejo, Gibson, Bichir, and a sizzling Amber Heard–are unbelievably entertaining, committing to the material with all their hearts. Unlike the rest of the cast, they don’t play it like a joke; from Bichir’s mad-man schizo lunacy, to Heard’s luscious sexuality (and perfect Spanish accent), to Gibson’s Oscar-mode performance, the quality of work these actors offer up is, frankly, surprising. Gibson is so good at being evil here one wonders why he hasn’t been cast in the villain role more often. Trejo’s dialog delivery isn’t on-par with his top-tier co-stars, but visually, physically, he embodies everything a testosterone craved moviegoer wants in an action hero.

With a title like Machete Kills, the death scenes had better be spectacular, and boy do they deliver. Rodriguez’s Mortal Kombat style violence engages the same twisted area of the imagination young boys use when blowing their action figures to smithereens with bb guns or melting their army men to puddles of plastic with matches in the backyard. It’s sadistic, sure, but it’s all in good fun. Heads roll, bullets rip flesh, innards explode (courtesy of a sci-fi gun that turns objects inside-out), and faces get melted (just like the army men!), but the most entertaining kills are the inventive ones. My personal favorite is one in which Machete latches himself to a spinning propeller of a helicopter with a grappling hook, sticks his machete out (there’s a dick joke in there, for sure), and lobs of the heads of a dozen or so baddies like some sort of gruesome, demonic carnival ride.

Rodriguez cleverly avoids showing graphic sex (be sure to bring your 3-D glasses!), though there are plenty of scantily clad ladies running around to satiate all you horn-dogs out there (I, as an esteemed journalist, am obviously not interested in such naughty things). The film bookends with trailers for the next film in the series, Machete Kills Again: In Space, keeping the spirit of the original “fake” trailer alive while nostalgically recalling the days of grainy VHS tapes, and I’ll be happy to make the trip out to the theater to watch Machete hack and slash again. The appeal of Rodriguez’s ’70s grindhouse influenced films like Machete Kills is bound to wear thin one day, but not today.

Starting as the character “Uncle Machete” in the first Spy Kids movie in 2001, DIY director Robert Rodriguez and legitimate badass Danny Trejo have breathed life into the character we now know as Machete, a Mexican anti-hero, bringer of over-the-top violence, and unlikely vixen magnet. A “fake” trailer in Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse double-feature led to the character’s first headlining feature, 2010’s Machete, a no-holds-barred breed of action flick that retains the same crass ’70s grindhouse aesthetic of Rodriguez and Tarantino’s collaboration. Machete returns in Machete Kills, a balls-to-the-wall sequel full of the craziest action scenes and death sequences you’ll likely see all year.

Machete himself, Danny Trejo, sat to chat with us during a roundtable interview about the origins of the character, his favorite death scene, how Machete appeals to kids, Mel Gibson, Carlos Estevez, other projects he’s got in the works, and more.

Machete Kills opens this Friday, October 11th

Press: The film bookends with a teaser trailer for a possible next film. Were you conscious of including these trailers, or was it more of an afterthought?
Trejo: The whole movie was an afterthought! (laughs) When [Robert Rodriguez] and I were doing Desperado, he saw the way I deal with people, [how I] mingle. I would be walking around Acuna, Mexico with no shirt, going into the barrio, eating at people’s houses and stuff. He says, “Danny, everybody [here] thinks you’re the star of [Desperado].” Nobody knew Antonio Banderas. I said, “You mean I’m not [the star]!?” He told me all about this character, Machete. He said, “[The character] is you. You don’t even have to act!” We talked about it, and when we got to doing Spy Kids, we thought, let’s name him “Uncle Machete”. We did it, and we thought, even if we never do [a Machete film], at least we put him in this movie.

Everybody has that uncle that nobody knows what he does. Especially Mexicanos! (laughs) We did Spy Kids, and then [came] Grindhouse, and they needed a fake trailer. Robert said, “Boy, do I have a fake trailer!” We did the fake trailer, and when the audience came out of the theater, nobody even mentioned Grindhouse. They loved [that trailer], man! Me and Robert talked about it, and we said man, we gotta make this movie. The audience demands it. We did the first Machete, and if you look, it’s one of the first times I’ve ever seen everything that was in the trailer in the movie. Usually, you’ll see something in the trailer, and then it’s like, “Hey! It wasn’t in the movie!” After we finished Machete, Robert thought there was something missing, and he said, “I know! Machete Kills!” and that’s how we got this film.

Press: Do you think Machete is like a response to Desperado?
Trejo: I think it’s that genre. Making Westerns is very expensive, to get horses to do [all these things]. We got as close as we could to a Western without horses! Desperado was as Western as you could get without horses. One of these days, I’ll try to talk Robert into doing a Western. He’ll probably go crazy. I did a Western called Dead in Tombstone with Mickey Rourke [that’s out now]. Dina Meyer from Starship Troopers and Michael C. Hall from Dexter are in it, and everybody really did [great]. This was a hard movie to shoot because we were in Romania, it was cold, and they had the best Western town I’d ever seen. Roel Reine, the director, directed me in Death Race 2 and 3, so he knew how I liked to work. I move, you know? Don’t keep me in the trailer, because I’ll go crazy! If you’re al wet and muddy, it’s not so bad when you’re moving.

WTI: The movie is over-the-top, with violence, guns, sex–let’s be honest, that’s what everybody wants! As I was watching the film, I couldn’t deny the 9-year-old in me who was going absolutely nuts over it. In a weird way, Machete appeals to kids, would you agree?
Trejo: Absolutely. It’s a fun movie. There’s no big social comment. It’s just, “Let’s kick some ass!” My mom wanted to go see Machete. She didn’t even think I had a job! I said, “Mom, I’m an actor!” Then, I did three episodes of The Young and the Restless, and it was like she and her grey-haired friends thought I won an Oscar. I took her to see Machete, and I was about to be onscreen with the two girls in the lake. I said, “Mom, you might not want to…” and she said, “Shut up! I’m watching this!” Robert and Quentin Tarantino were behind me, and to see my mom [freaking out], they couldn’t stop laughing.

Press: To switch gears, let’s talk about your work on Breaking Bad. How was that character proposed to you? It was only in a few episodes, but it makes such a huge impact on the show.
Trejo: Gloria, my agent, got the [offer], and she said, “Do you want to do a Hollywood first? Your head will go across the desert on a turtle.” It was a lot of fun. We did that episode, and it was received so well that we had to do the backstory.

Press: Which of Machete’s kills in the film is your favorite?
Trejo: The helicopter. I mentioned to Robert something about a helicopter, and there are three helicopter deaths in the movie! My mom was 84, and we were watching it. I take three guys’ heads off with one shot of a machete, but everybody laughs because of the way the heads bounce. Robert makes the violence funny. Even though its violence, you know it’s not real and you take it seriously.

WTI: Do you help Robert come up with these death scenes?
Trejo: He doesn’t need help. I was trying to get a hold of Robert before we did Machete, when we were putting it together. I called and called him, and finally I ran into him at Comic Con. “Robert! I’ve been calling you! Why don’t you answer your phone!” He said, “Danny, I was in a meeting with someone. Text me!” I said, “Machete don’t text,” and that ended up in the movie.

Press: You make a lot of blockbuster films, but you pepper in a lot of smaller projects. How do you choose what smaller projects to work on?
Trejo: I kinda let them come to me. Some people with a lot of money try to make low-budget movies. Low-budget movies, for me, are for people who are struggling. Those I’ll do in a minute. Student films ain’t got no money–they’ll take you to lunch and give you a hundred bucks or something. It’s good enough, especially to get someone started.

Press: I liked Bad Ass a lot.
Trejo: I’ve got Bad Ass 2 coming out with Mel Gibson, which is awesome…wait! It’s not Mel Gibson! Mel Gibson is in Machete Kills! (laughs) It’s been a long day. Bad Ass 2 is with Danny Glover. I gotta say, Mel Gibson was awesome in this movie. I had a sword fight with him, and when Robert yelled, “Action!”,  I threw my sword down. Robert said, “What’s wrong?” and I said, “I’ve got to fight William Wallace?! He freed Scotland!” Mel has a great sense of humor. He laughed.

Press: What’s the tone like on the set?
Trejo: One day, we were in an abandoned Home Depot, completely empty. No AC, in Texas. I was looking around, and I was thinking, how could the morale on this movie be up? And it was so up! Nobody cared. We were having so much [fun]. Robert’s like me–he won’t do something if it’s not fun. If we’re not having fun, it’s like, let’s go home early. It starts from the top–if the director is having a good time, everybody is having a good time.

WTI: I think you’ve been blessed with this great face for film…
Trejo: That’s what Robert says!

WTI: It’s probably the most bad ass face I’ve ever seen. Is there anyone who you’d be afraid to face off with?
Trejo: Chuck Norris! (laughs) Let me tell you something–all of these guys who are supposed to be karate experts in the movies? If you want to make them shut up, just ask, “How would you do against Chuck Norris?” and they’ll go “Uh…”. Chuck’s the real deal. Everybody else is Hollywood. We were doing Con Air, which was the biggest test of testosterone. You 50 Hollywood wanna-be bad guys. You’d spit, and somebody else would spit a little further. Soon, everybody’s [spitting]! Everything was a contest. This guy who used to fight Chuck Norris, Benny Urquidez, a kickboxing champion, was John Cusack’s sensei. Now, nobody believes it, but John Cusack is a BMF! He’s bad. He looks like the kind of guy you’d pick on, but he’d kick your ass, man. At lunch, Benny would grab me and say, “Let’s go to the dojo.” We’d meditate, work out and stuff. We’d all throw rocks to see who could throw the farthest, and they said, “No, Dan. If you lose, you’ll throw a rock at somebody!”

Press: Is there any question you wish journalists would stop asking you?
Trejo: No. Everybody’s pretty considerate.

Press: No one crosses the line?
Trejo: I just give them a dirty look. It’s funny, everybody has trouble with the paparazzi, but they’ve always been polite to me.

Press: Who would win in a fight–Machete or Rambo?
Trejo: I think Machete would be a little too slick, and I think Rambo knows it!

WTI: Do you have any intention of stopping making the Machete movies?
Trejo: No. As long as the audience likes them. Even with Rocky, they said, “Why are you making Rocky V?” Because Rocky IV made money! When they stop making money, we’ll stop making them. So far, we’re batting 1000. We’re doing really well.

Press: How was it working with Demian Bichir?
Trejo: He’s awesome. He’s so beautiful. We hit it off the minute we met. He said, “I’ve always been a fan,” and I said, “Shut up! You got nominated for an Oscar!” He’s a great actor. Carlos Estevez! Everybody wanted to be in this movie because the last one was so good. We got Amber Heard. I have a love scene with her. Robert said action, and he said, “Why are you laughing, Amber!” She said, “Because Danny won’t stop saying ‘Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus!'” She’s such a Texas girl. Her dad’s from Texas. We all went to look at this car somebody got–everybody was looking at the interior, the color, etc. Amber’s a Texas girl–“What kind of horsepower does it have?” (laughs)

After watching A Better Life, a story about a poor hard working father trying to provide for his son, it is not all that surprising that the director’s (Chris Weitz) previous work includes About a Boy. Although, it is a little shocking that he also did Twilight: New Moon and The Golden Compass. Weitz retreats from his blockbuster films to a familiar plotline, a heartwarming father and son story.

Carlos Galindo (Demián Bichir) is a poor undocumented Mexican immigrant who is a hard working gardener. Because his wife left him he must raise his 15-year-old son Luis Galindo (José Julián) alone. Carlos does the best he can do with what little he has.

Carlos does not want his son to grow up to be a gardener and his son is in agreement. Luis dreams of being rich one day, watching TV shows of million dollar homes show him what he does not have. But he is treading on dangerous ground as the friends he hangs around with aspire to be gangsters. If he is not careful he will end up becoming one as well.

At work, Carlos’s boss nags him every day to buy the work truck from him which would also include the business along with it but Carlos does not have funds to do so. He wishes more than anything to buy the truck as it means he gets the business which in return means more income. With no other option left, he calls up family to come up with the money. After convincing his sister the truck will eventually bring the money needed to pay her back, he gets the money.

Excited as can be, right after buying the truck he has it washed. Now that Carlos has his own transportation he is able to do some shopping, which he does to get his son a gift. He proudly shows up at after school to show Luis the truck but he does not show much enthusiasm about it. That is until his father tells him he gets to drive it when he gets his license.

All Carlos wants to do is to give Luis a better life, hence the title of the film. Now with his own work truck he can hire people now to work for him. That means he will make more money and eventually be able to move to a better place for Luis and him. He hopes that it would also mean that he would not have to work weekends so that he can spend time with his son.

Carlos picks up his first immigrant worker for a day out of a group of twenty or more begging for work. The first thing he does is show the worker how to trim a palm tree. As he is at the top of a very tall tree the worker takes off with the truck with the keys Carlos left on the ground. He was never able to catch up to his truck.

The truck symbolizes his dream of a better life and is once again chasing after it. It is now up to him and his son to try to track down the man who stole his truck. Perhaps more important than finding the truck is the bonding time he now gets with his son helping him.

The best scene by far is the conversation between Carlos and Luis near the end of the film. The scene has enough emotion to have you fighting back tears or at least a lump in your throat. If the film played it’s cards right, it could have had more scenes like this.

Demián Bichir was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars and Independent Spirit Awards for his portrayal of Carlos Galindo. His genital eyes undoubtedly helped him fit the role of his character well. The man was a hard worker whose only goal in life was to give his son a better life than his, how could you not like his character?

All said and done the performances in the film outweigh the thin and predictable plot. I felt like A Better Life was a little safer than it needed to be. Instead of throwing some hard punches, the film seemed to play it conservative by only throwing a few jabs. Which is really too bad, because the potential was there but the outcome was not. I believe it is the writing to blame because it was too plain vanilla to be anything more than mediocre.