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 Entertainment | October 2007 
Producer Says Movie Isn't About Arellanos
 Anna Cearley - San Diego Union-Tribune
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| | R. Ellis Frazier (second from left) and (from left) Keira Cahill, Delfino López Beltrán, Miguel Angel Saldana and Luis Manriquez scouted Tijuana sites last month. (Peggy Peattie/Union-Tribune) |
Tijuana – Film producer R. Ellis Frazier doesn't want people to think he's making a movie about the Arellano Félix drug cartel.
Yes, part of the script he wrote centers on a power shift in a Tijuana drug cartel.
And yes, the film is being shot in Tijuana, the city that has been the Arellanos' base of operations for about two decades.
But that's as far as it goes, Frazier said.
“It's not about the Arellanos,” he said. “We never mention them. We don't really know who they are. And we don't want those people to think we are making a movie about them.”
The Arellano family was once said to control 40 percent of the cocaine entering the United States. Although the cartel's top leaders have been arrested or killed in recent years, the organization remains a feared and powerful force in Tijuana. The group has been involved in killings and kidnappings even as it deals with internal splits and attacks from rival cartels.
Frazier said “La Linea” is about a U.S. hit man hired to kill the vicious head of a Tijuana drug cartel. When he arrives in Mexico, a woman and her daughter offer him redemption.
Ray Liotta (“Goodfellas,” “Blow” and “The Rat Pack”) will play the assassin, Frazier said. Valerie Cruz, who has appeared on “Nip/Tuck,” will play his Tijuana love interest.
“It's a story about hope, and you experience how good of a place Tijuana is,” said Frazier, who lived in Mexico for about 10 years. “It's not about corrupt cops and drug leaders taking over the city.”
Gabriel Del Valle, the coordinator of Baja California's film commission, isn't thrilled that another movie is going to explore the seamier side of Tijuana, but he acknowledged there are benefits from having any production – even an unflattering one – filmed in the city.
“I prefer they make the films here than to go somewhere else to spend money and say it's Tijuana,” said Del Valle, who operates out of the office of the state tourism secretary.
Last year, 64 film projects – ranging from commercial shots to movies – contributed an estimated $10 million to the Baja California economy, Del Valle said.
Filming for the mostly English-language movie is scheduled for November. The crew has begun scouting for locations in Tijuana's Zona Norte area, known as a center of prostitution and other vice.
Frazier, who wrote and produced “Confessions of a Pit Fighter” in 2005, is working with two other American producers: Geoffery Ross and Bob Dziadkowiec. They are collaborating with Tijuana film producer Delfino López Beltrán.
Frazier said they plan to show the film at independent theaters next year.
Tijuana has inspired other drug trafficking movies. The Academy Award-winning movie “Traffic,” which wasn't filmed in Tijuana, was about a Tijuana cartel modeled on the Arellanos.
Attempts to protect the city's image and encourage filmmakers to explore the softer side of Tijuana, have met with limited success.
In 1997, local officials registered the city's name with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property after learning that a Mexican soap opera focusing on illegal immigration was going to be called “Tijuana.”
Under pressure, the producers revised and renamed the script “Los Que Se Van” or “Those Who Leave.”
Anna Cearley: (619) 542-4595; anna.cearley@uniontrib.com |
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