Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

gavin6942 Peasants escaping mindless labor and a murderous Guatemalan government head to America in hopes for something better.I am not super knowledgeable about immigration and I cannot say it is a topic I am very passionate about one way or the other. I don't think immigrants (legal or otherwise) should be demonized, but I certainly understand why we have a process in place so not everyone can come in.I think this film had a very realistic approach, and was more than just propaganda. We understand why the two main characters make the choices they do, and cannot be upset with them even if they are "illegal". We see the trouble they run into and the adjustments they make. I found it fascinating how the film explores the whole range from finding work, to the immigration authorities to getting medical care.

davehouses It's a good enough film. The cinematography and the soul of the script are what make the movie for me, though. They chose non-actors it seems for the film and I found it a bit distracting at times.Props to the focus of the story and that it doesn't all end with days of wine and roses, which makes me happy because I was greeted with as honest a film on the subject back in 1983. Not that it's not, but there are a few moments where I found myself saying, "Come on, really?" There are moments in the film where red herrings are thrown around (sequence where helicopter and them crawling through a rat-infested tunnel, is an example) and the editing can be a bit off with pacing. Other moments in the story where they are confronted with a difficult circumstances that hadn't brought themselves up until later in the story, and you're surprised that they haven't been confronted with up until that. In other words, conflict arises to serve the movie and the flow of the story; they show up to hit the beats that you expect for a movie to hit. The flow of the story can be a bit arbitrary at times, which when you notice, can be annoying.For me, the saving graces are the cinematography and the production design. The cinematography provides for a lot of beautiful imagery, with most of the film's images coming from the backdrop of Guatemala. The production design. I feel like the production design captures a lot of the culture and it establishes the world that they live in very well from the beginning of the movie. The image of the worker's feet as they move at the command of their foreman/boss as you see an alternation of naked feet and torn-up tennis shoes is pretty clever and it's this little account for details that make up the environment which I really liked about the film.The cinematography with the character's in Guatemala is beautiful to look at and made the film for me. I guess the middle of the film and the way certain conflicts arise struck me as contrived.The final sequence as Enrique makes it to his new job and reflects before the credits roll, was awesome and it made me reflect more positively on the film. So, yeah: watch it.

The_late_Buddy_Ryan Low-budget epic from '83 about two ethnic Mayan refugees from the highlands of Guatemala who end up in East LA. Seems dated now, but it's still quite watchable: nowadays our protagonists would prob'ly qualify as asylum seekers, since they're fleeing from ruthless landlords and genocidal death squads in their (otherwise idyllic) mountain village. The two leads, both born in Mexico City, don't seem much like "indios," but they're quite appealing. The journey through Mexico is mostly played for laughs—much is made of the Mexican propensity for adding obscene phrases like "de la chingada" to every utterance, and a half-hearted mugger at the border is easily dispatched with a well-placed kick. After one more hideous obstacle (difficult to film convincingly with such slender resources), they're in El Norte… Interesting that the native-born "pochos" (English-speaking Chicanos, including Trinidad Silva, the dude that played Jesus Rodriguez on "Hill Street Blues") tend to be portrayed as shifty and treacherous; the final scenes in SoCal alternate gentle social satire and melodrama in a kind of Dickensian way that I found quite involving. W/d director Gregory Nava went on to direct mainstream fare like "Selena"; an earlier film, an Héloïse and Abélard thing called "The Confessions of Amans" set in medieval Spain (and using leftover costumes from "El Cid"!), sounds like it might be more interesting. PS—Soundtrack weirdly mingles Guatemalan folk instruments with bombastic classical chestnuts… What's Mahler's Fourth doing in there!?!?

annegroombridge Bearing in mind the problems in the United States with immigration at the moment I feel that El Norte should be watched again and reflected upon. America is a land of immigrants. The Bush administration needs to chill out and the laws need to change accommodate our friends from the south, not alienate them and criminalise them. I am an ex-pat American; an immigrant to the United Kingdom. I can only hope that the conservative right in the USA opens up its eyes and begins to welcome the brave Latinos and Latinas, as I myself have been welcomed into my adopted country. They need to learn to do unto others and they would have done unto themselves. Our Latin American friends have suffered terribly through the past fifty years as a result of the US government paranoia about the rise of socialism of any sort in their backyard. The Monroe Doctrine, which states that US interests must be protected at all costs in the western hemisphere, is at the root of the problems that led to the massacres in Guatemala in the 1980's. The film El Norte shows vividly what a terrible effect this had on our neighbours. Ordinary citizens did not realise what was happening; I believe that Americans are good people, but they are often misled by the government and the media. Now the American people have the opportunity to make it up to the Latins. I would love to see them make proper amends NOW!