Logline
A modern-day Neo noir set against the cold asphalt of an unforgiving city, “BAGGAGE” follows a mysterious world where desperation and ambition collide.
At the heart of this story is Los Lobos, a ruthless East Coast cartel.
When one brother makes a deadly decision, the other is forced to live with the consequences. This is a cautionary tale of betrayal, loyalty, and survival—where empires rise with a whisper and fall with a roar.
Director’s Biography
A New Jersey filmmaker, director, editor, and Emmy Award-winning broadcast professional. His lifelong connection to cinema began in his father’s video store and continued through seven years working in a movie theater, eventually becoming a projectionist and general manager. After studying graphic design and filmmaking, Vicente built a career in broadcast television while continuing to pursue narrative filmmaking. Baggage, an independent crime thriller that he wrote, produced, directed, and edited, marks his feature directorial debut and the culmination of years spent developing his craft both professionally and independently.
Expert Review
The film at its best
Baggage is about two brothers in Jersey City who can’t get out from under each other. David, the older one, has spent years inside Manny’s drug-and-nightclub operation and learned how to survive it: keep your head down, don’t talk, don’t skim. Jason, the younger one, shows up broke and pregnant-girlfriend in tow, wanting everything David has and none of the discipline it cost him. The film works whenever it stays with that pairing.
The strongest scene is the one at the burial site. The two of them have just been told to bury the Russians, Jason is rattled and trying to cover it with bravado, and David finally says what he’s been holding back: he’s in this life because he has to be, and Jason is in it because he wants to be. It’s a short exchange, but everything that follows grows out of it. Jason’s pill deal collapsing in the club bathroom, his getting thrown out by Manny (“I killed someone for you”), the theft from Sam: you can see each one coming because this scene told us who these men are.
That’s why the hotel sequence lands. When Manny hands David the gun and says Jason has to go, the film doesn’t need a speech. David’s “Sorry, bro” is two words, and it carries years of covering for his brother. The motel interrogation (around 152:40) is where the performances feel most exposed, and it’s worth building the edit around. What comes after is just as good: David raising Jason’s child, then sending Angela away because the only way to protect her is to be absent from her life.
Angela deserves her own mention. Her monologue about the stray bullet that came through the window when she was thirteen, and what it cost her, is the quietest scene in a loud film, and the most human. She’s pregnant in a story where she could easily be background, and the film gives her a past and a point of view. Sam’s late scene about retiring and finding the grandchildren he’s never met does something similar for a minor character. Both scenes show you write well when you slow down.
The look of the film
The cinematography is the film’s most consistent asset, and it has an identifiable visual idea: cool, clinical club interiors that get violated by warmth. The moment at 3:12:19, when the blue-and-purple palette of the Quantum Lounge gives way to saturated red as the shooting starts, is the clearest example. It makes the point about the collapse of order without a line of dialogue. The silhouette against the skyline around 2:03:59 shows the same confidence. These are choices, not accidents, and they give a modest production a recognizable look.
The doll in the final act is the best use of the title. “Baggage” is a heavy word to build a film around, and the doll carries it physically, as something a character literally has to hold and decide whether to keep. It’s an image and not a line of explanation, and it works.
Where the film can grow
Length. At 204 minutes, the brothers’ story has to travel a long way before it reaches us, and some of that distance is padding. The digging and cleanup stretch (around 24:20) runs well past the point where it’s made its case. The car conversation near 1:15:00 circles over ground the film has already covered. The syndicate negotiations in the middle act repeat the same beat: someone sits at a table, someone threatens someone, a deal is floated and falls apart. A version between 120 and 140 minutes isn’t a lesser film. It’s the one where the burial scene and the hotel scene are ninety minutes apart instead of two hours, and the audience is still carrying the first when the second arrives.
Too many rival camps. Between the Russians, the Colombians, the Mexican suppliers, Hector and Mr. Ronaldo, Gideon’s partnership scheme, Manny’s side deals, and Marisol’s family loyalties, there’s a lot to track, and the film isn’t always clear about who wants what from whom. None of these threads is bad, but together they pull attention from David and Jason. Choose the two or three that put the most pressure on the brothers and let the rest sit offscreen. The tapes subplot in particular is set up and then largely forgotten; either pay it off or cut it.
Marisol. The relationship is meant to give David something to lose, and it does, but we meet it mostly after it’s already in trouble. Her “it’s me or them” ultimatum works as a plot hinge, but it would feel like a heartbreak if we’d seen more of what David and Marisol actually have. A couple of quiet scenes early on would do it.
Dialogue. Much of the talk in the club and office scenes leans on familiar gangster phrasing: businessman speeches, talk of respect and tribute, threats delivered as polite conversation. The performers can handle it, but it sounds like a genre. Compare it with Angela’s monologue or David’s two-word apology, where the specificity is the point. When a scene is working, ask what happens if the characters say half as much.
The ending. The last stretch shifts into something more surreal and interior, with the aftermath of violence taking over from the violence itself. That’s a strong instinct and arguably the film’s real subject. But the final beats arrive as a run of music and fragments, and it’s hard to tell whether David’s story is meant to close or stay open. Even a single clear image or line that tells us what he chose would let the tone settle.
Sound and performances
Music is a major part of the film’s texture, from the club sequences to the stretches that carry the story without dialogue. It sets mood well, but it also sometimes stretches a scene past what the scene needs, and a few of the longer musical passages feel like pacing problems rather than atmosphere. The cast does its best work in the intimate scenes. The larger ensemble sequences, particularly the rival-boss meetings, ask the performers to play types more than people, and they read that way.
Festival outlook
As it stands, Baggage is a good fit for genre and midnight programming, where its atmosphere and ambition will find people willing to sit through the length. A tighter cut built around the brothers would be a stronger submission for competition slots, because the material that would carry it, the burial scene, the hotel, Angela, the doll, is already shot.
