Child exploitation, prostitution, and pornography in Mexico may well make for interesting and laudable movie subjects, but the fact that the film dares to talk about them does not make it "gritty". In fact, the film verges on sensationalistic and voyeuristic, with a Larry Clark-esquire desire to show lots of young bare flesh and naked bodies.
The film was made on a shoestring budget, and it shows, most notably with the nerve jangling score, and sound effects, which actively intrude upon your appreciation of the action.
Sin Destino desperately wants to be a Mexican version of Pixote, which also covered the subject of street kids. It even goes so far as to use untrained "actors", as in both Pixote and Kids. However, director Leopoldo Laborde fails miserably to coax believable performances from Francisco Rey the lead; or even from Roberto Cobo, the one supposedly trained actor.
Francisco's range seems to extend no further than playground pushing and shoving, melodramatic snivelling, OTT angry abuse, and sullen silence. None are delivered with any subtlety or realism, and intrude on every scene in which he appears.
Partly for budgetary, and partly for artistic reasons, the majority of this film is shot in 16mm black and white, and even the colour scenes were only recorded on SVHS. This Blair Witch-style low cost filming is supposed to give the film a rawness that makes it seem more like a documentary, but the lighting and image quality are so bad that they detract from the story.
Leopoldo Laborde sounds sincere in his desire to bring a difficult subject to light, and although his script is very much by-the-numbers, lacking any meaningful exploration of the repercussions of such a life, it could have worked in far more competent directorial hands. As it is, Sin Destino stands as a testament to pre-film-school level direction, acting and script-writing.
When the director whines about the difficulty in getting his film distributed, he should look at the quality of his product, rather than blaming the world for being afraid to take on "these sort" of films.
