Sin Nombre Critic Reviews

It's the tone of the movie's two sides - action and stillness, graphic violence and romantic melodrama - that don't cohere.Read the full review

It contains risk, violence, a little romance, even fleeting moments of humor, but most of all, it sees what danger and heartbreak are involved. It is riveting from start to finish.Read the full review

Whenever Sin Nombre turns violent, it seizes you with its convulsive skill, but the film's images vastly outstrip its imagination.Read the full review

There is bitter and breathtaking truth in the story and in the story- telling, which won Fukunaga the directing and cinematography award in the dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival.Read the full review

More substantive than the average thriller/road movie.Read the full review

There are some brief minutes when the tension drops and the story starts to sag, but Fukunaga almost always fills the frame with something worth seeing, and the story has a built-in suspense.Read the full review

Fukunaga clearly exhibits a flair for spirited storytelling, but when Sin Nombre departs from the specifics of its unique world in favor of more conventional genre execution, it leaves the characters and audience adrift.Read the full review

What keeps the movie from tipping into full-blown exploitation like "City of God," which turns third-world misery into art-house thrills, is Mr. Fukunaga's sincerity. What keeps you watching is his superb eye.Read the full review

Fukunaga paints better outside the lines, working with cinematographer Adriano Goldman to offer vivid shots of the poverty and despair cutting through Latin America, of gang rituals and territorial skirmishes, and of ordinary people taking dangerous routes to a better life that may be a mirage. Next time, a few rewrites please.Read the full review