Immigration Tango

TedFlicks Rating:

$9.00 ticket on a scale of $0 to $13.50.

NOT EXACTLY BOB AND CAROL AND TED AND ALICE

Helmer David Burton Morris has not directed a theatrical feature in 15 years, but it is clear from “Immigration Tango,” a low budget independent flick, that working in TV has not cost him his touch.

Pic is a touching, amusing trifle about four best friends, two of whom, Elena Dubrovnik (Elika Portnoy) and Carlos Sanchez (Carlos Leon), a couple living on a boat in Miami Beach, are in the US on temporary visas about to expire.  The other couple, Mike White (McCaleb Burnett) and Betty Bristol (Ashley Wolfe), are US citizens engaged to each other.  She is obsessively nearing the end of law school, and that has put a strain on their physical relationship.  He is working on a seemingly unending doctoral dissertation about sonnets.  She is Felix.  He is hardly Oscar except by comparison to her.

As the title suggests, plot centers on preventing Carlos and Elena from being deported — she to Russia and he to Colombia.  One way to do that is for both to marry American citizens.  However, the immigration laws are very strict about marriage fraud.  It carries prison time.  And the foursome have the bad luck to get caught in the crosshairs of Ms. Ravencourt (hysterically played by Avery Sommers), a by-the-book immigration cop who is like a dog with a bone once she is on the case.

Pic functions on several levels.  It is at once buddy film, romantic comedy, slapstick cops and robbers, and feel good movie rolled into one.  The foursome aspect, which begins when Mike and Elena marry under the pretence of being husband and wife and Carlos moves in with Betty under the pretence of being a couple, is hardly Paul Mazursky’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” (which is arguably one of the greatest movies ever made about swinging) but it does push the emotional boundaries for the characters.

Mike is a tad reserved.  Elena (who is easily Mike’s intellectual equal) swims nude at dawn.  “The fish don’t mind,” she says.  She is also hot.  Mike is conflicted, but he is too much of a boy scout to take advantage of the living arrangement on the boat.  Proximity offers emotion a chance to work its magic.  The sight gags in reaction to it alone are worth the ticket price.  Carlos, who is the voluble “Latin Lover” type, has no such compunction with regard to Betty, but she won’t even consider fooling around until she has past her last exam at law school.  At least her exposure to Carlos at close quarters enables her to put some passion in her mock closing arguments.  Success depends on the four of them keeping up the ruse for two years.

Their first chance to fool people comes at Thanksgiving with Mike’s parents and sister.  The four friends visit.  Success thus far.

Not thanks to Carlos’ temper, loud mouth and jealous nature, which manage to get the entire plan torpedoed.  Ms. Ravencourt, it seems, is following the four on the scent of trouble.  Remarkably for a feel-good movie, the ending offers some suspense, not quite in the spectacular way director Stuart Rosenberg accomplished it in The April Fools, but with charm and good nature for which the writing team, which includes Portnoy and Morris as well as Robert J. Lee and Todd Norwood, has already softened up filmgoers.  Pic, rated R for sex and language (none of which is offensive), offers tech credits that belie its modest budget, estimated at $1.1 million.  Clean editing by Lee Cipolla and Misha Tenenbaum aid in keeping the jokes flowing.

Pic may be notable as the only good thing to arise from America’s increasingly strident arguments over immigration reform.

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