Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: A Day Without A Mexican (2004)

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Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 05-02-2006, 09:30 AM:

A Day Without A Mexican (2004)

Well, I figured since yesterday was the day of the national Day Without An Immigrant Protests, I'd watch this movie over the weekend and see what I was in for.
The premise of this movie is that on one day in California, all Mexicans, legal or not, disappear and the whole state turns upside down.
Everyone runs around in a mass panic wondering how they will carry on.
This premise is interchangeable really.
I mean I'm sure that if all the Mexicans vanished things would get a bit uncomfortable (especially if they weren't coming back).
But it wouldn't last.
Those of us left behind will find a way to fill the jobs that are now open, either by hiring the unemployed (and possibly homeless?) or by giving more responsibilities to the already employed.
Big corporations do it all the time.
They eliminate jobs, lay off people, and the remaining employees just have to do more work.
That being said, the same would happen if all the whites disappeared.
Or all the blacks.
Or women.
Or left handed people.
Or teenagers.
I'm sure you get the picture.

The movie itself wasn't done very well.
It was supposed to be a comedy, but I think I may have laughed only once during the entire show.
The script was bad and so was the acting.
Apparently the writers took the two wrongs make a right approach when deciding how to portray people.
How many times have we heard complaints about how blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, etc. are portrayed in the media?
This show turns it around and paints whites as a bunch of clowns who would not be able to function on their own.
When the whites take to the fields to pick the fruit, they apparently don't know how a ladder works and allow a tractor to run off on its own, nearly running down a news reporter.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who fit the stereotypes, but I have to ask, is this supposed to be a taste of our own medicine or a bad imitation of Blazing Saddles?

The most ridiculous part of this movie was the purple fog that surrounded the state.
The viewer is led to believe that the fog has something to do with the disappearance of the Mexicans and the fact that communication outside of California has been disabled.
This however is completely forgotten once the Mexicans return.

The point of this movie is to show how important Mexicans are to the overall functioning of our society, but what should really be taken away from it is the fact that EVERYONE is important to society, but we should try not to look at things along racial lines.
How people should become a part of our society and how they should act and be treated once they are a part of society has been and probably will be debated forever.
This movie had an opportunity to make a good point, but missed the boat by being too ridiculous.

1.5 out of 5