Best of the 2000s: #10 – “Sin Nombre”

“Sooner or later they will find me.  The gang has a good memory.”

-Casper

With over 50,000 members, MS-13 is distantly the most prominent gang in the world.  And it’s still growing by the day.  Members are recruited when they are still in elementary school and taught to believe that the organization is more significant than their own lives.  It represents something far greater, a sense of pride and unity in the fact that you have 50,000 brothers that will always have your back.  When kids are corrupt at such a young age, they become almost helpless; stuck inside a destiny they can’t escape from.  Once you join MS-13, you never go back – without the penalty of death.

“Sin Nombre” begins in the gang-infested city of Tapachula, in the south of Mexico.  Casper (Edgar Flores) is an MS-13 member in his late teens who is secretly sleeping with a non-MS-13 sanctioned girl.  Casper has been involved with MS-13 for a while now, and it’s clear that he has many doubts about his ability to stay committed to the gang forever.  He sneaks around with his girlfriend and tells lies to his leader, the terrifying Lil Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejia), about his whereabouts when he’s with her.  Lil Mago is covered from head to toe in MS-13 tattoos and clearly has no tolerance for any of his gang’s members that may not be fully commit to the organization, and he starts to doubt Casper.  But Casper still sticks to his assignment of training newly initiated MS-13 member Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer), a boy not too much over the age of ten.  Smiley is completely committed to the gang, but knows that Casper is lying to Lil Mago and we wonder whose trust he will break first: Casper’s or the gang’s.

Meanwhile, the film also follows a teenager named Sayra (Paulina Gaitan).  We begin Sayra’s story in Honduras, when her father returns after a long absence.  He has started a new family in New Jersey and travels back to Honduras to rescue the daughter he left behind.  Their choice of travelling is by jumping atop cargo trains headed north, and this is where their story overlaps with our MS-13 characters.  Casper, Smiley, and Lil Mago are looking to rob illegal train-riders and they jump aboard the same train that Sayra and her family ride.  This first encounter leads to one of the most intense scenes you’ll ever see as the train rides through a furious downpour and we hope Satya doesn’t become a victim of the reckless and unpredictable Lil Mago.

The most common critique of foreign films that are introduced to the American public is in their structure.  Foreign directors from the past such as Godard and Fellini didn’t believe in the American three-act structure and developed their films on their own terms.  This led a great deal of followers into believing the best way to rival the Hollywood system was to ignore the conventions that guided American films – And a lot of foreign films pull it off quite well.  But “Sin Nombre” has as succinct and flawless a structure as any Hollywood film you’ll see.  Every scene in the film exists for a reason, advancing both the film’s storylines and thematic details.  Just as Smiley is initiated into MS-13, Lil Mago’s suspicions of Casper’s dishonesty come into play and it creates this great dramatic appeal as we wonder which side Smiley will end up on.

It’s a story of fate on two levels.  Casper wants to get out of the gang, but knows if he abandons them, they will hunt him down and kill him.  Smiley knows Casper is betraying the gang and if he fails to come clean with Lil Mago, his own allegiance to the gang will be in question.  The drama builds in an almost Shakespearean manner with great storyline shifts at every key plot point.  Just as the characters in “MacBeth” and “Hamlet” hold secrets from one another, each scene in “Sin Nombre” involves a great deal of suspense as to whether secrets will be revealed and alliances will be shifted.

The film is very dark, mostly because of how realistic of a situation it deals with.  Both Sayra’s hope of finding the US and Casper’s hope of escaping MS-13 are against the odds, and are filled with as many obstacles as any film you’ll see.  So if dark films aren’t your thing, “Sin Nombre” may not be a film for you.  In order to fully capture the life of members of MS-13, it would be impossible to make a non-violent movie, so be aware of what you’re getting into.

It’s surprising that there haven’t been any mainstream American films based on MS-13 the past couple decades, and equally surprising how little attention “Sin Nombre” has received despite getting more than solid reviews.  It has every bit as much grit as “City of God,” and has an honorable and moralistic main character in Casper that’s impossible not to like.  An American remake could be possible within the next decade, but I think it’s more likely that the film catches fire at some point and people start to realize how much it has to offer.  Gangster films aren’t for everyone, but the best of their kind can develop large cult followings and “Sin Nombre” is a one-of-a-kind depiction of gangster life in Southern Mexico.  Outlaw lives are a constant source of fascination in cinema, and with MS-13 being the greatest benefactor of outlaw violence in the world, “Sin Nombre” is a film that any crime-genre fan needs to add to their viewing list.