Frontera (2014) poster
2014 · western · drama · music

Frontera

Directed by Michael Berry1h 43m2014
ElsewhereIMDb6.69kRT54%Metacritic58
  • sombre
Movie DNA

Sombre, steady, measured western / drama, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

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After crossing the border illegally for work, Miguel, a hard-working father and devoted husband, finds himself wrongfully accused of murdering a former sheriff’s wife. After learning of his imprisonment, Miguel’s pregnant wife tries to come to his aid and lands in the hands of corrupt coyotes who hold her for ransom. Dissatisfied with the police department’s investigation, the former sheriff tries to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and discovers disturbing evidence that will destroy one family’s future, or tear another’s apart.

Our read · Frontera (2014) reads as a sombre, steady, grounded western · drama · music entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Frontera

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a border injustice drama with Ed Harris seeking hard truth.

ends warmit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 18attention 3/5earns its lengthsubtitles: partial
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violencesexual violencechild peril

Skip it tonightSkip if immigration tragedy and assault scenes feel too grim tonight.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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