Matchmakers have a long and respected history. The role was often filled by older women who had some social standing, they could act as an impartial party when finding mates for people. Though that practice isn't usually associated with American culture, that doesn't mean that there are none to be found in the United States. One American matchmaker, and an unlikely one at that is Ivan Thompson, a retired horse rancher who is currently single and has been married, and divorced, three times. Though his personal track record isn't anything to brag about, Ivan has been finding Mexican wives for lonely American men for over a dozen years. Cowboy Del Amor, a film by Michèle Ohayon, follows the 'Cowboy Cupid' into Mexico with a pair of customers to see if he help them find happiness. Though Ivan sounds a bit odd, and he is, the film has a lot of charm and personality to it.

After a long and not overly happy marriage ended in divorce, horse rancher Ivan Thompson found himself looking for a wife. Finding American woman too demanding, he looked south of the border for a spouse and found one. Though they were only married for a year (the first time, they later remarried and divorced again) Ivan thought that there were many American men who would love to have Mexican brides. He started a business to match women with lonely men.

The movie follows one of Ivan's matchmaking expeditions into Mexico. For a $3000 fee Ivan takes a truck driver named Rick deep into Mexican countryside. After crossing the border they take an 11-hour bus ride to Torreon where the pair checks into a hotel and then heads to the local newspaper. There they take out an ad stating that Rick would like to meet a thin, young woman with no more than one child with the object being matrimony.

Then they wait. The phone rings, Ivan interviews the women who call and then sets up appointments. For the next five days Rick will meet women in the hotel lobby, and over the course of a half hour conversation, he'll have to decide if this woman might be the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with. If he does find someone, he only has a matter of days to convince them, and himself, that they should be married.

Ivan also takes James, a used car dealer, across the border. He's interested in one particular woman that has registered with the matchmaker and she is flown in to Juarez, a border town, where the two spend some time together to see if they are compatible.

Filmmaker Michèle Ohayon has made an engrossing documentary. The film moves quickly and never gets bogged down, and it is quite entertaining. Viewers really start to pull for Rick to find someone, the truck driver seems genuinely nice and down to earth. When he does, you wonder if it will all work out, and hope it does.

The real star of the film though is Ivan Thompson. The matchmaker is quite a character. Very outspoken and has a home spun phrase for every situation. Though he's advanced in age, he still thinks of himself as quite a catch, and the fact that his ego is out of proportions with reality is one of the charming things about him.

Ivan is a bit of a misogynist, and he makes no bones about that. He claims that women's lib ruined American women, and that they are too independent now. Ivan's ex-wife said that they got a divorce when she wanted to take classes to learn to speak English. He didn't want her to, for fear that someone would put ideas into her head.

The men who hire Ivan also seem to not be looking for a partner as an underling. They all claim that American women are too demanding and hard to get along with. It seems fairly obvious that they are looking for someone who will be subservient to them. That appears to change for Rick when meets Francis however.

The one area where I think this documentary falters a bit is that they don't go into the reasons why these people are looking in a different country for a mate. Both the men and women state that they want something different, but the blanket statement like 'Mexican men don't care about their women' ring hollow. I think it would be a huge step for a women to go to another country where she doesn't speak the language and has no family to marry a man she hardly knows. I wish they had looked into the motivations on both sides a little more.

It would be easy to condemn Ivan and his business as a fancy form of indentured servitude until you see the women who answer his ads. He places ads in higher class journals and most of the people who answer are career women. These aren't desperately poor people who will do anything to get to the US, but smart women, some of them college educated, who have good jobs and are lonely themselves. When one Mexican woman tells Rick that she doesn't care about how much money he has, and that she just wants someone to love her for herself, she looks like she's being totally sincere and honest. If she finds that certain someone, even if it's through answering an ad in a paper, that's can't be a bad thing.

Audio:

This disc comes with both a 5.1 audio track and a stereo soundtrack. Both sound very good, and there's not a very large difference between the two. The 5.1 track has the music surround the viewer, but since this is a dialog driven film advantage of the 5.1 isn't as great as some other discs. The dialog is clean and clear and audio defects are very minimal. There are no subtitles, though most of the Spanish is translated with burned in subtitles.

Video:

The widescreen (1.78:1) color image looks good for a low budget documentary. This movie was recorded on digital video tape and HD video, and you could tell the difference between the two while viewing the movie, but this isn't distracting. Since this is a documentary the movie wasn't always filmed under the best circumstances. Some scenes are dark and grainy and others are a bit too bright but that just adds to the realistic feel of the film. The level of detail is fine and the lines are nice and sharp. A good looking documentary.

Extras:

There are a few nice extras included on this disc. There are two minutes worth of Ivanisms, out-takes that feature Ivan's unique way of turning a phrase. Dumb Mail, where Ivan replies to a writer who asks if it is possible for the women to turn the men down, and A Story About Revenge, a short tale that Ivan tells, round up the featurettes.

There is also an audio commentary by director/producer Michèle Ohayon, DP Theo Van de Sande, composer Joseph Julian Gonzalez and Ivan Thompson. This was an entertaining track that wasn't dry at all. Michèle does a good job of keeping everyone talking and on track, and gives her impressions of the people that Rick and Ivan were meeting and Ivan fills in some details that didn't make it into the final film. Well worth listening to.

Final Thoughts:

This is an entertaining and enjoyable documentary. If you can get past the fact that Ivan is more than a bit sexist, he becomes a fun character. His down to earth way of talking and political incorrectness is both funny and a bit astonishing. A very good film that is easy to recommended.