Reviews

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  ★★★★ review by Waldo on Letterboxd

  We got the US-Mexico border. Smuggling guns is a young Mexican man that ends up on a road trip with an ATF agent on his back. Tim Roth is great as always. Love how natural this thriller flows. Ripstein Jr.is gonna be a hell of a director!

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  ★★★★ review by Kevin Matthews on Letterboxd

  I was really enjoying 600 Millas. REALLY enjoying it. And I thought I had it pegged. The fact that a young man can buy cases of bullets and then is only asked for ID when he also requests two packets of cigarettes – oh yes, this was going to be a look at the damage caused by guns and youngsters making easy money from gun crime. I was wrong. It’s actually a thrilling road movie, for the most part, before delivering an ending that lifts it up from very good to great.

  Tim Roth plays Hank Harris, an ATF agent who doesn’t come into the movie until the tail end of the first act. He’s just about to arrest a young man, Arnulfo (Kristyan Ferrer), when the situation takes a turn that leads to him being incapacitated and stashed in the car that Arnulfo uses for his gun runs. Not knowing quite what to do, Arnulfo decides to drive from America back over the border to Mexico. His elders will know what to do, surely.

  Director Gabriel Ripstein has crafted a quality movie that manages to keep bettering itself with each unfolding chapter. The opening act is solid, and intriguing, but then things step up a gear when Roth and Ferrer end up together. There’s great character development, there are some real moments of tension, and the film could go anywhere. Without spoiling things, the third act amps things up even further, while moving once again into slightly different cinematic territory. And then there’s the final few minutes, as simple as they are brilliant. I already want to rewatch the film, and it just finished a couple of hours ago.

  Ripstein also co-wrote the script with Issa Lopez, bouncing around between lines of English dialogue and lines of Spanish dialogue, and it’s a great template for the actors to work with. Ferrer may have to snivel once or twice too often, but he’s very believable in the role of a boy trying to act like the tough men he now works for. And Roth gives a performance so good that it will make you yearn for him to grab many more roles that actually deserve his talent.

  Taking apart the separate elements, there’s plenty here that you’ve seen before. And I wouldn’t be surprised if many people experienced deja vu while watching. But stick with it and I guarantee (but not in a legally binding way) that you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

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  ★★★★ review by Ottolumiere on Letterboxd

  Una ópera prima vertiginosa que a través del tráfico de armas de USA a México, nos muestra la pérdida de la inocencia y descenso a los infiernos de un incipiente gángster llevado de la mano hacia allá por su siniestro tío y un agente de la ATF. Grandes actuaciones, buen manejo del tiempo fílmico, una puesta en escena muy correcta

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  ★★★★ review by XaviSanchezPons on Letterboxd

  La 'intrahistòria' i versió lo-fi de "Sicario". Escric la crítica per Butxaca:

  www.butxaca.com/ca/cine/cartellera/details/600-millas/124781

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  ★★★★ review by Robert Fuller on Letterboxd

  Something of a distribution oddity: a Mexican arthouse film that's being marketed towards the mainstream Mexican-American audience (it even had Spanish subtitles for the English dialogue). It's a Michel Franco production, for chrissake, directed by Gabriel Ripstein, who was a producer on Franco's last film. Ripstein has a similar style as his cohort, but he's clearly where the real talent lies. I recommend going into this movie completely cold, as I did (I knew Tim Roth was in it, but that's about it ... and that was enough for me). It's gloriously unpredictable from beginning to end -- I kept thinking I knew where it was going, and was gratifyingly proven wrong each time. It's ultimately a very sad movie, for reasons that aren't at all apparent until the end ... and then it's like, "Oh, yes, of course."

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