“Sin Nombre” develops on the kill or be killed concept of “City of God”: If you stay, you’re dead. If you try to leave, you’re dead. Here is an example of a person trying to leave Mexico for America as so many attempt to do for a fate that is equally unclear.
The film’s title translates to “without a name” of which the main character has two, but no true identity. His name is Willy (Edgar Flores), but on the streets of Mexico and to his gang he is El Casper. We have much empathy for this character, who literally wears his emotions on his face in the form of a tattoo teardrop. He brings along a young 12-year-old to join the gang, either to distance himself or have someone closer to himself than these hoods that call themselves brothers.
The leader of the gang accidentally kills Casper’s girlfriend as he tries to rape her, and on an ambush job to steal from immigrants traveling north, Casper murders his boss and flees on the trains along with the rest of the illegals. This element of the story develops into a riveting and brutal cat and mouse thriller, but the added depth to the film comes from Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a Honduran girl making her way north with her father and uncle. She and Casper grow close, and the film charts an astonishing friendship and romance between these two teens.
Like “City of God,” “Sin Nombre” shows that corruption and hardship lies with the youth of the city, and these young, amateur actors most fit to be genuine in their roles are excellent at portraying the burden they all carry.
It is also a harsh film, and although not nearly as cinematically or visually enthralling as “City of God,” depicts some terrible moments steeped in emotion all within the context of humanity. The initiation on the streets is being horribly beaten and kicked by every gang member for 13 seconds. We learn the punishment for betraying or lying to the gang is just the same.
But the screenplay by first time director Cary Fukunaga does not stop at the pain and brutality itself. Later when Casper is on the train with Sayra, he tells of how he got his many scars, and we see that the pain runs deep in these characters.
“Sin Nombre” is brief, dramatic and intense, and in its hopeless, depressing and shocking conclusion comes a glimpse of a chance. It paints the other side to the American immigration problem and shows that amidst all that is terrible in that part of the world, there is goodness, humanity and possibility.
The many immigrants that attempt to cross the border may be without a name, but they are not without a heart.
4 stars