What a fun movie. Beautiful scenery and great cast! Boy what a road trip! I now know where my next road trip will be.

This is a fun, well-paced movie that's carried by an excellent ensemble cast of young actors and some good supporting actors you'll recognize, like Mark Margolis, Kurt Fuller and Cynthia Stevenson. What starts out as an improvised road trip grows into a quest of sorts as the group of buddies - two guys and two girls - each have their personal reasons or agendas for traveling with their friends across the Baja peninsula. Just when you think you know how this story is going to go, surprising developments and revelations turn things upside down for everyone. If you like a road trip movie with engaging characters and a story that surprises you - just like a great journey does - Baja delivers that and more.

source: Baja

I do not get the hate towards Baja by posters here. I agree it is not Citizen Kane, but it is not Paradise Hills either. I actually watched Baja again and I preferred it the second time. Baja is about four Americans: Bryan, Todd, Jessica and Lisa and their trip in an RV to Baja, California, Mexico. Why? Did I prefer it the second time? More information that I missed the first time about my favorite characters. Bryan and Carmen. Bryan who has no ambition in life ( he is actually still a virgin and works selling sneakers despite his parents being wealthy) and Carmen who is a very beautiful local prostitute, and as another woman said about her, "different then the other girls."'Interesting enough she worked at a place called Bad Girls ( although she is actually a good girl gone bad. If anyone has ever seen the movie Bad Girls and is aware of Andre MacDowell's Eileen, they will know exactly what I mean): it goes without saying, I consider the Bryan/Carmen portion is the best. Why are they good together? 1: Because of the obvious chemistry between the two of them. 2: Spoilers ahead: They need each other, because they have been taken advantage of: Bryan because he is too nice and not respected and Carmen is viewed as a sex object and is also not respected ( oddly enough they are very much like Eileen and the guy she ends up with William). Spoilers ahead: There is one scene that stands out. It is where Bryan is lost in the desert and it was Carmen who looks for him and finds him while all his friends forgot about him ( he may have died without her). Carmen gets him to do stuff like Cliff diving and finally stand up as a man and Bryan gets her to respect herself. The very best scene is when his parents come to Mexico expecting to see their RV ( it ended up in the ocean), and instead they see him with Carmen. Interesting enough, they are not angry when he explains what happened and introduced Carmen to them. In fact, his father told her he was "Pleased to meet you" . I think the reason why is they knew she was special to him and not a one night stand, and he finally grew up and will no longer do jobs beneath him like his previous position selling sneakers. Bryan and Carmen drove his parents back to California and as Jessica (who narrates) says "They had the time of their lives" and he finally got laid. Since she is a Mexican citizen, it is pretty certain that they got married so she can remain in the US with Bryan ( and get the fresh start she needs). As for the others, the main character.( Lisa) discovers she has a deceased half sister Lorena who was a famous singer in Mexico ( both women are played by Arianne Mandi). One interesting question is besides becoming a Selina like singer ( like Lorena) what happens to Lisa? Does the gangster really go straight for her? Also, did Lorena really speak to her from Heaven? I do think that Lisa will remain in Mexico because she is happier there then with her mom who does not appreciate her. As for Jessica, she becomes a documentary film maker ( she filmed the trip) and Todd became her agent ( he sold the film of their trip to a TV Station called Adventure TV), so everyone ends up successful. 7/10 stars. Mostly for Bryan and Carmen.

We screened this title with pretty low expectations, but we're great fans of the Baja California peninsula, so we hoped that we'd at least get to see some great scenery and maybe some familiar places. This film, however, only served to remind us that good movies are hard to make. There was nothing overtly terrible about this effort (well, the "special effects" surfing scenes and the ferry sinking with the RV aboard -- not a spoiler, btw, as this scene is in the trailer -- were so terrible you had to wonder whether the filmmaker realized they were laughable), but when you take a B-minus story (the story had potential, sadly unrealized here), C-plus acting (the cast has talent, I fault the director for not eliciting better performances), C-minus screenplay (oh! the dialogue! the cliches! the cultural condescension! the tedious expository moments!), D-plus digital color grading (a heavy-handed directorial indulgence that should have been totally unnecessary) on top of the aforementioned failed effects, you get a D-minus-minus movie. The whole turned out to be MUCH less than the sum of its parts. And the lure of a vicarious road trip down the peninsula? Sorry, no dice here, either, as the movie was almost completely shot in and around a modern development in Loreto, standing in for scenes as disparate as the old city of La Paz and the Los Cabos International airport. Oh, I should add that the music was pretty good -- and while none of it stuck with me the next day, it was maybe the best part of the movie! Better Baja movies abound. Dial up the desert-racing documentary DUST TO GLORY, or the Spanish-language dramedy CAMINO A MARTES, just to name two. Let this one dry in the desert dust and never waste anyone's time again.

Please do not believe ANY positive ratings here. Only one is honest enough to admit he is one of the producers -- the rest are obvious shill reviews. This is a blatantly incompetent, amateur production that looks like it was made by high schoolers, and not even college kids. The plot makes no sense; the most you can say is the supernatural aspects plus ridiculous plot twists (gangster goes straight, for love -- heroine is the sister of the famous dead pop star she worships) resemble superficially that of Mexican soap operas. Completely unfunny jokes, stock characters, zero acting skills -- young singer "Lisa" is probably the producer or director's girlfriend, pathetically hoping for a "break" -- whole idea of "Lorena" taken from the late Tex-Mex singer Selena in a very sleazy way -- honestly the film is one "cringe" after another. Special effects are so poorly done, you'd think a little kid had put it together on his iPhone. If anyone involved here think this film will act as their "resume" for a real career....uh no. Likely you folks have tipped your hand by having several characters with trust funds. The audience therefore knows where YOU got funding for this pitiful mess. Conclusion: total CRINGE. Burn all copies. Do not watch under any circumstances!

The final scene gives this movie's purpose away: the director's way to show his middle finger to the teachers in film school he dropped out from. The movie is something you've seen before dozens of times, only done worse. The special effects are the funnyest thing in this: they reach "so bad it's good" level - it makes "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" look fresh and advanced. To sum it up: acting is mediocre, story is bad, CGI is funny. Waste of time if you ask me.

I really liked Baja. I've spent plenty of time wandering down thru Mexico, without knowing exactly why. It's a magical, mysterious, and beautiful place. If you look up the history of cinema, in fact, proximity to Mexico (and distance from Edison) was one of the key reasons why the film industry settled in Hollywood to begin with. The Cal-Mex connection has been alive and well for at least a century, and that is very clear in Baja. I get it, I appreciate it, I value it. Sure, there were plenty of cheesy moments in the film -- which is why I didn't give it an even higher rating. But that didn't bother me so much. I loved the passion and spontaneity and the magic realism of the trip. Oh yea, and plenty of laughs along the way, too. Well done!

Checked this movie out on a lark while it was in theaters and was really pleasantly surprised. Really fun little indie road trip comedy that covers all the bases (comedy, romance, suspense, drama). It's even got one of my favorite actors in it Mark Margolis (Hector Salamanca from Breaking Bad!). If you're looking for a fun, feel good comedy that will draw you into its story and give you something a little more meaningful than your average comedy, this is definitely worth checking out. The entire cast is really solid and there are a ton of really fun supporting characters that pop in and out of the story. To top it off, the story and themes go a little deeper than you would expect on first glance and really stay with you. Basically, there's no way you're going to come out of this movie not feeling better than when you went in. Highly recommend for a weekend afternoon flick or a good date night movie.

A love letter to Baja. Who wants to escape for a brief road trip with a colorful cast to Baja? Beautiful scenery, fun story, great job to Tony Vidal and his cast.