Illegal Tender Release
Date: August 24, 2007 Studio: Universal Pictures Genre: Thriller MPAA Rating: R (for violence, language and
some sexuality) Official Website:
IllegalTendermovie.net
Plot Summary:
After the gangsters who killed his father come to
settle a score, a teenage boy and his mother turn the tables on the killers.
Producer John Singleton ("Four Brothers," "Hustle & Flow") and writer/director
Franc. Reyes ("Empire") join forces to tell the story of one Latino family's
quest for honor and revenge as the hunted become the hunters in the new thriller
"Illegal Tender."
Wilson De Leon, Jr. (Rick Gonzalez) is an exceptional college student with an
adoring girlfriend, doting mother and a future full of promise. He has never
wanted for anything, and he has never been forced to stand his ground. But when
ghosts from his mother's past come back to haunt his present, he must defend his
family...and quickly turn into the strong man his father prayed he'd become.
Nothing could stop Wilson's mother, Millie (Wanda De Jesus), from protecting her
two boys. Forced to flee her home after gangsters killed her husband, she made
an oath to give her children only the best. But all that changes when an enemy
from the past catches up with them. It's finally time to take action--and now,
they're done running.
Weapons at the ready, Wilson, Jr. and Millie prepare for a final showdown with
the murderer who robbed him of a father and her of a husband. Now, in a battle
fueled by family ties and blood feuds, it will become very clear what happens
when anyone tries to come between this son and his mother.
EN 5 Second Review:
We might feel a lot differently were we Latino, or even
urban for that matter.
For
a second, the movie has the snap of a truly surprising thriller... But
then we go back to following the kid, who manages to both mope and strut
along the path to manhood Marc Bernardin: Entertainment
Weekly
There's a moment, early on in Illegal Tender, when Wilson
(Rick Gonzalez), an entitled college whiz, follows his widowed mother
(Wanda De Jesus) into the basement of their lush Connecticut manse,
where she opens a safe and unloads a cache of guns....more
A
problematic but compelling exaltation of violence,
privilege, and ethnic pride, Illegal Tender is
incessantly but hotly scored, suggesting something of a Sirk
melodrama for our Reggaeton times Ed Gonzalez: Slant Magazine
Iris Chacón is no longer shaking her culo on national
television, but its reverberations are still being felt...more
Release
Date: August 24, 2007
EN 5 Second Review:
We might feel a lot differently were we Latino, or even
urban for that matter.
A
problematic but compelling exaltation of violence,
privilege, and ethnic pride, Illegal Tender is
incessantly but hotly scored, suggesting something of a Sirk
melodrama for our Reggaeton times