{"id":53886,"date":"2026-07-15T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=53886"},"modified":"2026-07-15T01:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T05:26:18","slug":"mexicali-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/15\/mexicali-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexicali (2026)\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A man with secrets lives in Mexico on an avocado farm with his partner goes back to\u00a0fighting to make a bit of money before finding himself fighting a much bigger enemy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now available on VOD.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Written by Luke LaFontaine and written by Jesse V. Johnson, Mexicali is a fun, violent romp through the Mexican countryside\u00a0with one of the co-stars of this spring’s Beast showing up as the lead. The film seems to have been\u00a0made to fit his skills, showing off that he can both fight and act. The writing here is\u00a0good,\u00a0and the direction works quite well with it, together helping create a situation perfect for the lead to show off and just right to make for an entertaining film that feels like it flies by on its\u00a0runtime.\u00a0Considering that\u00a0both\u00a0of them\u00a0have done\u00a0plenty of\u00a0work in stunt departments, it should be no surprise that the action is on\u00a0point,\u00a0and the fights are fun to watch\u00a0(with stunt coordination by LaFontaine). Also, they do not sit on this and ignore the story as\u00a0what is there\u00a0is interesting and keeps the attention beyond the action sequences.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The cast here\u00a0is led by Bren Foster who is making quite the name for himself in the mid-range action world, showing up here with the action chops on point and the fighting chops even better.\u00a0He’s\u00a0here to save the day and\u00a0it’s\u00a0clear this is\u00a0<\/span>his<\/span><\/i>\u00a0film.\u00a0He’s\u00a0solid here and makes for a fun, entertaining watch. Joining him as Estrella (or however he pronounces it… yes, he gets called out on it in the film) is Tania Raymonde who straight up steals a bunch of scenes and runs with them.\u00a0She’s\u00a0fantastic and radiant at times. She attracts the attention, keeps it, and gives the men a run for their money while being\u00a0basically one of two\u00a0women in the cast.\u00a0She’s\u00a0there, she able, and\u00a0she’s\u00a0not going to let the men have all the fun. The rest of the cast has some serviceable bad guys or\u00a0henchmen,\u00a0and one solid lead bad guy played by Plutarco\u00a0Haza\u00a0who has this attitude about him that might just make you care.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The cinematography by\u00a0Pascal Combes-Knoke creates a\u00a0good-looking\u00a0film with a mood that is almost tranquil in some scenes and completely active in others while keeping the general look of the film cohesive. The\u00a0framing works and the camera movements give the viewers the opportunity to\u00a0actually see what is going on whether it be in the sun, the dark, or during fight scenes\u00a0(with a few moments where light and dark clearly made it hard to find the perfect balance without sound stage lights). The images\u00a0show\u00a0the places\u00a0just right\u00a0and make it look like the weather is\u00a0just right\u00a0to that part of the world (coming from someone who lives a few miles North). The editing by\u00a0Matthew Lorentz works great with these images and allows the viewers to see the fights, something too many films\u00a0have\u00a0failed at\u00a0lately. His work gives the film energy when needed and\u00a0calm\u00a0the rest of the time. He helps build some tension and create the\u00a0overall\u00a0mood of the film.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mexicali is an entertaining action film that\u00a0has\u00a0plenty of action and stunts to satisfy action\u00a0fans\u00a0while also having a story for those who need just a bit more to their films.\u00a0It’s\u00a0written, directed, acted, choreographed, and shot like a film that knows what it wants, how it wants it, and how it wants the audience to see it. If you can move past the slight “white savior” aspect of the lead being a white man working to save the locals, something the film makes clear he’s not there for but happens to be there when things hit the fan), it’s an easy watch that is entertaining.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A man with secrets lives in Mexico on an avocado farm with his partner goes back to\u00a0fighting to make a bit of money before finding himself fighting a much bigger enemy.\u00a0 Now available on VOD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,302,631],"class_list":["post-53886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-drama","tag-martial-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53887,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53886\/revisions\/53887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}