An intriguing racial fantasy in which a wealthy Latino family wants to build a wall around their Southwestern estate to keep out poor whites, The Wall of Mexico is a good, role-reversing satire in an anti-immigrant age. The white thieves, under the cover of darkness, are stealing the family’s well-water, which contains mysterious properties said to benefit whoever drinks it.
Tasked with watching the well at night is Don (Jackson Rathbone), a handsome, itinerant laborer who mostly keeps his head down until he can no longer stand being kept apart from the cocaine and sex decadence of the family’s two daughters.
Wanting badly to cross class and racial lines, Don (who is white) is briefly allowed a taste and then is repeatedly kicked to the curb by the girls, leaving him fuming. When the head of the family (Esai Morales) repeatedly speaks to Don with suspicion, the young man becomes frustrated and angry.
Co-directors Zachary Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak could have spent a lot less time on the partying, which is a bore visually and narratively, but aside from that, The Wall of Mexico is a memorable tale about a young guy wanted only as a laborer and with no chance of self-improvement. The fact that he’s white and the wealthy. xenophobic ones are Latino, drive home a powerful point.