Bordertown is a 2007 American crime drama film written and directed by Gregory Nava, and starring Jennifer Lopez (who also served as a producer), Martin Sheen, Maya Zapata, Sônia Braga and Antonio Banderas.
The film is inspired by the true story of the numerous female homicides in Ciudad Juárez and tells the story of an inquisitive American reporter sent in by her American newspaper to investigate the murders.
Lopez also recorded a song for the film entitled Porque La Vida Es Asi.
Plot
The opening titles explain that American corporations are using the North American Free Trade Agreement by opening large maquiladoras right across the United States–Mexico border. The maquiladoras hire mostly Mexican women to work long hours for little money in order to produce mass quantity products.
Lauren Adrian (Jennifer Lopez), an impassioned American news reporter for the Chicago Sentinel wants to be assigned to the Iraq front-lines to cover the war. Instead, her editor George Morgan (Martin Sheen) assigns her to investigate a series of slayings involving young maquiladora factory women in a Mexican bordertown.
Worker Eva (Maya Zapata), originally from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, takes a bus to go back to her shanty-town home after work. After a while she is the last passenger still in the bus. The driver asks her if she minds if he goes to a gas station to fill up, and Eva agrees. However, he takes her to a remote place and assaults and rapes her, together with another man, who then tries to strangle her. The two men, believing she's dead, bury her alive. With the little energy she has left, Eva escapes.
Adrian heads to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, on the U.S.–Mexico border to investigate the murders, hoping that if she does well she will be promoted by Morgan to be a foreign correspondent. In Juárez, Adrian meets up with Diaz (Antonio Banderas), whom she had been working with six years before, and who is now the editor for the local newspaper El Sol de Juárez. She also meets Eva.
The three try to find the two killers and have them prosecuted. For this purpose Adrian starts working in the factory in order to act as bait on the bus ride. The driver tries to assault her in the same way he did Eva, and although police assistance has been arranged, they are at the wrong place. She manages to escape her attacker. Later Diaz gets shot and killed in a drive-by shooting. Eva changes her mind and does not want to testify any more for fear of revenge, and tries to flee to the U.S., together with others in the trunk of a car. She gets caught and is sent back. Adrian convinces her to testify after all. For political reasons the Chicago Sentinel refuses to publish Adrian's story. Adrian quits and becomes the editor for El Sol de Juárez.
Cast
Jennifer Lopez as Lauren Adrian: reporter for the Chicago Sentinel, and daughter of Mexican immigrants. Antonio Banderas as Alfonso Diaz: founder of newspaper El Sol. Maya Zapata as Eva Jimenez: factory worker and rape survivor. Sônia Braga as Teresa Casillas: founder of an organization trying to help the women in Juárez. Teresa Ruiz as Cecila Rojas: a young factory worker. Juan Diego Botto as Marco Antonio Salamanca: son of the extremely rich Salamanca family, owner of one of the maquiladora. Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez as Lourdes Jimenez: Eva's concerned mother. Martin Sheen as George Morgan: Lauren's boss. Randall Batinkoff as Frank Kozerski: Lauren's co-worker and friend. Kate del Castillo as Elena Diaz. Rene Rivera as Aris Rodriguez: rapist. Irineo Alvarez as Domingo Esparza: bus driver and rapist. Juanes as himself
Production
Background
The motion picture is based on a series of unsolved murders in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a large Mexican border city across the Río Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande) from El Paso, Texas.
When Gregory Nava first heard about the murders in Ciudad Juárez he wanted to do something. He said that his vision became to tell the stories through "an exciting thriller-drama".
Gregory Nava approached Jennifer Lopez to do the film in 1998 and she was receptive. Lopez said, "Since first hearing of these atrocities in 1998, when Gregory Nava came to me with this project, I desperately wanted to tell this story. I began working to ensure we made this film in order to bring the attention of the world to [the] tragedy and to pressure the Mexican government to bring to justice those responsible for these horrible crimes."