No Man’s Land (in English and Spanish, subtitled) nods a bit to a genre bolstered by the likes of Sam Peckinpaugh and essentially has a more compassionate outlook through a kind of repentance. When it concerns intolerance and divisiveness prevalent in today’s headlines.
The title situates an area north of the Rio Grand and south of fencing that is damaged leading to a nighttime calamity concerning an unnamed Mexican clan. Apparently, the Greer ranch has been compromised. The shooting of a young son of Gustavo (Jorge A. Jimenez) by Jackson (co-writer Jake Allyn) during the harsh confrontation with the other side filled with high anxiety and unarmed has patriarch Bill (Frank Grillo) and brother Lucas (Alex MacNicoll) wounded.
The heart of the film resides in the journey of Jackson, recruited by the Yankees for their farm league baseball squad. George Lopez’s Texas Ranger Ramirez sees through the ploy of Bill to cover for his young adult sone who finds his way across the Rio Grande with trusty steed Sundance.
A kind of awakening (read: redemption) awaits a person attempting a rash endeavor not very cautious or wise in certain respects, given his upbringing (not very cautious or wise in certain respects, given his upbringing (not learning much Spanish) in the protagonist is getting work and shelter from a ranching tycoon with a luminous daughter (Esmeralda Pimentel). So, there’s a grasp of what his ‘southern’ neighbors are like as Gustavo and a brutish local (Andres Delgado) on his trail.
This No Man’s Land has the director for a keen eye for his scenery to transpose the desolation and the lofty picturesque images from and environs. Yet, the conflict to be resolved by directing and writing siblings isn’t very insightful or convincing for that matter. As the vantage point is titled too boringly for its own good too often. A little less wayward when it comes to Jackson and more depth for Ramirez and Gustavo (Lopez and Jimenez make the most of their limited parts) might have helped redeem an empathetic Western that exists in mediocrity like The Marksman.