CINEMA
PROPERTY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Movie Review
[TO THE POINT]
Published: 02.23.22
MPAA: R
Genre: Thriller.
RELEASE: 02.14.22
"...this isn’t a “real” film."
BORREGO (2022)
THE "IMDB" PREMISE:
"Borrego follows a young botanist who relocates to a small desert town to study an invasive plant species. She must fight for her survival when she's kidnapped by an inexperienced drug mule after his ultralight plane crashes in the desert."
OUR [TO THE POINT] REVIEW:
Borrego is a film that starts off interesting enough but gets hilariously worse as it goes on. The cinematography and most of the performances are solid throughout, but the script plays all of its cards in the setup and runs on fumes for the rest of the runtime, leading to a hilariously choreographed climax you can’t help but question the logistics of.
It should also be noted that this isn’t a “real” film either, but an anti-drug PSA for Nancy Cartwright’s KnowMoreAboutDrugs.org which, to be honest, makes zero sense in the context of the film. This film is about a woman being held hostage by a drug trafficker who’s doing this to escape a bad life (the ol’ “the bad guy isn’t that bad, just in a bad place” trope), and the only drug mentioned are illegal drugs whereas the organization is about the dangerous side effects of prescribed psychotropic drugs such as those given to treat ADHD.
I feel like a documentary or a narrative film actually about what the organization is trying to communicate would be much better than the generic film presented with an unrelated PSA tacked on at the end. 2004’s 'Throw Down Gillette' ad after a dedication to Akira Kurosawa made more sense.