Samuel Goldwyn Films is releasing Mexicali in theaters, and on digital beginning March 13.
Under the stewardship of stunt multihyphenante Luke LaFontaine, Australian martial arts star Bren Foster now sets his return to the screen in Mexicali, marking LaFontaine’s debut at the helm. The film is penned by Jesse V. Johnson with whom LaFontaine has collaborated plentily over the years on a number of projects like Pit Fighter, The Beautiful Ones, Savage Dog, The Debt Collector films, and Avengement to name a few.
For this, Johnson’s script culminates a packaging of familiar tropes and Easter eggs to help usher in LaFontaine’s freshman feature to the delight of genre fans. It helps that the momentum is further drawn by the success of Foster’s own debut, 2024’s Life After Fighting which he also produced. Additionally, Foster’s film remains a contending hit having connected with commercial audiences, genre fans as film festival patrons alike.
Foster efforts his dramatic caliber just as well in Mexicali in the story of an ex-mercenary and fighter named Joe, whose trade nowadays as an avocado farmer in the titular city bordering Mexico and California still requires him to help make a living to pay his workers. Narratively, the occupation is also tied to Joe’s own stoic search for a clean slate after a life of violence, having also covertly found love in Estrella (Tania Raymonde) whose family owned the farm on which he works.
That respite ultimately takes a turn for the grim following a run in with the son of a powerful crime boss that results in Joe having to resurface his own killer instincts. When weeks pass by and a shady businessman named Baptiste (Plutarcho Haza) surreptituously pays Joe and Estrella a visit, it’s only a matter of time before Baptiste and his bloodthirsty bosses descend on the farm as retribution, forcing Joe to take matters in his own hands to protect both the life and the woman he loves.
If you enjoyed Life After Fighting, you can be assured that Foster’s caliber is consistent in Mexicali. He poses discernible talent as an actor and screenfighter who can especially deliver the goods on the latter. Point in fact, one of the best facets of his role in its familiarity to fans and as far as archetypes go, is that his is the character who doesn’t let up when it’s time to kill some baddies. There’s no diplomacy, only instinct, and Foster’s own training and execution for film bodes exemplary in this matter.
Smartly, the script also leaves enough wiggle room for levity in his shared screentime with Raymonde as romantic partners. The only minor fault here is overexposition which tends to stifle things a little bit in the drama where dialogue isn’t really needed at times. Co-star Haza’s role lends enough mystique to Mexicali as the most complicated character among the roster, whose motivations will result in a twist leading up to the film’s explosive final act.
Supplemental characters help fill the gaps as necessarily plot points to carry the story with actor Roman Phillip as Lopez – Joe’s friend and employee on the farm, Daniel Montilla as Marco, and Edgar De Santiago as the catalystic Chavez whose role could have fared even longer in a bigger flick. Last and far from least is the inclusion of Louis Mandylor whose character, a boxing gym owner Joe goes to for help later in the film, serves as a tangential glimmer for anyone who’s had en eye on this particular corner of the genre in the last decade.
The first near-ten minutes of Mexicali is a volley of versatile wall-to-wall martial arts fight pit action, making good with Foster and co. front and center of the film’s key selling point. LaFontaine’s action direction goes hand-in-hand with Foster’s key choreography, all punctuated by enough palatable gore and firepower to warrant an R-rating, including a few appetizing moments between Foster and co-star Kris Van Damme who plays muscle-bound henchman, Ruthie, and a two-part machete tete-a-tete with stuntman Bryan Sloyer as one of Baptiste’s soldiers.
The fanservice, in a sprinkle of excess or two, even goes as far as to tribute a little of director Walter Salles’s own filmography in a scene where Joe trains Estrella to defend herself using a knife. Upon request and in short order, Joe takes a practice knife to his target while demonstrating the ends to which he’d use such a weapon, leaning in and basically demolishing the damn thing. It’s a great scene, although we never get to circle back to that mood by the film’s climatic finale which goes off with mostly guns ablaze.
This isn’t necessarily to say that Mexicali disappoints. Far from it. While we await Foster’s next endeavor to come in the year, LaFontaine’s inaugural transition from decades in stunts and weapons expertise to fully-fledged filmmaker in Mexicali provides a satiating holdover that won’t check all the boxes, but makes damn sure to leave most of them bleeding out accordingly before the credits roll.
