(2025, 94 min)
Country: U.S.
Director: Spencer Cohen
Studio: Blue Harbor Entertainment
Language: English
SYNOPSIS: A nuanced portrayal of immigration, friendship, and LGBTQIA+ experiences, THE COMPATRIOTS follows Javi (Rafael Silva), an undocumented immigrant facing deportation, who unexpectedly reunites with his estranged best friend Hunter (Denis Shepherd), a vivacious bachelor seeking deeper connections. Together, they embark on a heartfelt journey to prevent Javi's expulsion from the only country he has ever called home.
REVIEW:
Perhaps more timely than ever, considering the daily reports of ICE agents removing the undocumented people among us, and attacks on them of the verbal variety, The Compatriots is an independent film that puts one specific human face on their plight. In writer/director/co-producer Spencer Cohen’s first full-length feature, the fear factor and focus on friendship are foremost at hand. Fortunately, it doesn’t overplay the sympathy card or get too heavy for too long. The project sits, or squirms, in the hybrid category of “dramedy.”
At the center of the saga is soon-to-be-unemployed, unassuming, unaffected, undocumented Javi (short for Javier), played sighingly by Rafael Silva with a mix of rolling with the punches and wearily rolling his sad eyes (big, brown, puppy dog eyes). Like its creator’s real-life friend whose history inspired the story, he came to the USA from Peru as a child. Javi isn’t eligible for the Dreamers program’s protections. He doesn’t initially tell those who befriend him that he’s in the country illegally and doesn’t tell his father that he’s gay. Heterosexual Hunter (Denis Shepherd), the other male protagonist, is provocative and propitiatory, trying to renew his relationships from high school days with once-close friend Javi and girlfriend Tracy (a grounded performance by Caroline Portu). Hunter gets more than a little upset when teen-aged Javi impulsively kisses him and the unwelcomed smooch is the death knell to their friendship.
Javi and Hunter were fellow baseball players. Hunter presents himself as a “player” in the other sense of the word (hint: not video games), but isn’t as smooth or savvy (or smart) as he supposes. One might grouse that the actors certainly don’t pass for fresh-faced teens in those early scenes, but not too many film minutes go by before a just-in-time time-jump brings the action to find them encountering each other five years later. Hunter is more mature now (well, to a degree) and regrets the broken ties and tries to break the ice by cheerily and chummily chatting. But Javi is not interested in breaking the ice. He wants to break away from the ICE agents who have arrived at this bar/restaurant where former classmates have gathered. They’re looking for Javi, who works there, in the kitchen. But not for long – the close call (not his first narrow escape in the film) costs him his job. Hunter is persistent in wanting to make amends and mend fences, which gradually works, and soon Javi does reveal that he’s undocumented and fears deportation. To demonstrate his willingness to help, Hunter offers cash, commiseration, and a commitment to go through with a sham marriage so Javi can get a green card and legally stay in America. Will they go through with it? If so, will they get away with it? Will the worried immigrant get away from the pursuing agents in the meanwhile?
At times, the movie pulls on the heartstrings and at other times it stretches credulity via convenient coincidences that keep the plotting from being too plodding. For example, at a gay bar, Javi just happens to run into George, his understanding college faculty member who just happens to be gay and who happens to be qualified to perform marriage ceremonies and whose own partner just happens to be a lawyer who is willing to offer advice. George is played by a man whose last name just happens to be the same as the first name of one of the key characters, but we can assume that actor Jaison Hunter’s surname is a more believable coincidence.
Comic relief arrives with cute fun or questionable force (your mileage may vary). Most of it comes via Denis Shepherd’s characterization as clueless, hapless Hunter, and it often lands. In one scene, he’s the confused, bemused fish-out-of-water in foreign territory in the gay bar, asking if someone is a “bear” type. In another, trying to win favor with Tracy, he shows that the guy is not the most informed person in the world when he claims to admire her desire to serve in the Peace Corps – mispronouncing it as “the Peace Corpse.” Another young woman pursues him for a sexual encounter, telling him that she works as a clown and wants to know if he’ll be turned on if she wears her red, round clown nose. (Later, Javi finds it obstructing his comfort when he’s alone, reclining on Hunter’s couch.) There’s initial humor in the goofy characterization of a guy named Ryan (a broad interpretation by Dakota Lustick), trying to pass himself off as a powerful law-enforcing official when the badge he proudly flashes actually represents his job as a school crossing guard. But his self-aggrandizing nature turns from something trivial to something troubling when he eagerly tries to ingratiate himself with the ICE agents, to join their ranks, and he’s more than willing to tail and turn in Javi and/or Javi’s father.
Without being too predictable or too preachy about politics, while adding some sweetness to suspense, The Compatriots is competently compassionate and, in its best moments, compelling and complex.
Review by Rob Lester in Stage And Cinema [https://stageandcinema.com/]
