The 2010 thriller film Undocumented, is brought to us by IFC films and directed by Chris Peckover. It tells the story of five grad students filming illegal immigrants crossing over to the United States. This turns bad, however, when they are all captured by a Patriot vigilante group. The only students worth knowing are Travis, played by Scott Mechlowicz, and Liz, played by Alona Tral, only because they get the bare minimum of characteristics. The other three are just there to die at the hands of the evil patriots and hold the cameras. It’s funny when discussing how the film is actually shot; it’s like a small child deciding which toy to play with. At first, switches between a “handheld movie” and an regular shot film, it finally decides to keep the “handheld movie” style that is until the end where it goes back into a regular movie.
There isn’t a lot to say about the acting in the film the students all phone in their acting, although the characters aren’t that great in the first place. On the side of the evil patriots, they are quite boring, even Peter Stormare, who plays the leader Z, gets boring. All he does is twirl his Snidely Whiplash mustache and say racist things. He never really gets his hands dirty except for maybe once or twice.
When shooting a film that deals with the hotly debated issue of Illegal Immigration, a director has to make sure to handle to subject with respect. Chris Peckover, who by the way co-wrote the film, instead treats the movie like he wanted to direct “Saw” mixed with “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. There are a lot of tasteless violence just for the sake of violence and swearing to get an “R” rating. There is also a lot of things that people wouldn’t do that these characters do because it drives the film forward. Why would these documentary makers bring very bright lights to this kind of situation? Do they want to get the immigrants to get caught?
The evil Patriots also make head scratching decisions as well? Why would they want the students to record everything instead of just knocking them out and letting them go? Why have them record what is going on if they were going to kill them on camera? The only reason is because the film wouldn’t make sense, and it would only be thirty minutes long. Along with baffling decisions, there is also the fact the film is very nasty to look at. No one is expecting flowers, but the film shakes the camera a lot and the camera quality changes a lot.
Overall, this is a prime example of an exploitation film, a film that exploits the hot issues of the day. All the characters are defined with one descriptive word, and the acting is also very one note. “Border Incident” a film from the 50’s actually deals with the issue a lot better than this film does. This is not a highly recommended film.