From Mexico With Love: October 9, 2009

In From Mexico with Love, Hector Villa (Kuno Becker), a scrappy migrant farm worker and part-time prizefighter, joins forces with an old-school trainer to take on a rich rancher’s boxer son in the ring. An adrenaline-pumping action drama that also stirs the heart, the film stars rising talent Kuno Becker (Goal!) as well as Steven Bauer (Scarface and Traffic), Bruce McGill (Collateral) and Danay Garcia (“Prison Break”), and features thrilling fight scenes from stunt coordinator-turned-director Jimmy Nickerson (Rocky, Raging Bull, Fight Club).

Farm laborer Hector toils in the fields of a Texas ranch by day and moonlights as a boxer by night in whatever impromptu bouts he can line up. The winnings aren’t much, but they help support his ailing mother (Angélica Aragón), who works beside him in the fields. Meanwhile, the ranch’s tyrannical owner has fighting ambitions of his own: his son Robert (Alex Nesic), an all-American playboy, is a rising star on the local boxing scene.

Hector wants to face Robert in the ring—not least because Robert has taken an interest in the beautiful Maria (Garcia), a young worker recently smuggled across the border by the gruff but kindhearted Tito (Bauer). But the ranch owner doesn’t want his son fighting a Mexican “picker.” Hector’s shot at a better life appears doomed when he gets fired after brawling with ranch heavies who have slashed his mother’s pay. Beaten up, broke and jobless, he gets dumped back over the Mexican border for his troubles.

While there, Hector tracks down a veteran boxing trainer (McGill) who takes him under his wing and helps him prepare for the ultimate David-and-Goliath faceoff—a fight against Robert. After some tough negotiating by Tito, the ranch owner agrees to the match. The bout becomes a dramatic showdown between the racist ranchers and the masses of downtrodden farm workers, who see a victory in the ring as a chance to reclaim some of the dignity they’ve lost in the fields. Their hopes rest in the calloused hands of a young hero with something to prove.
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