COWBOY DEL AMOR
unrated, 88 minutes

Ivan Thompson calls himself “Cowboy Cupid.” He runs a matchmaking service that specializes in pairing American men with Mexican women because, as he puts it in “Cowboy del Amor,” a documentary about his cross-border dating service, “American women are too much problems.” Mr. Thompson’s clients appear to share this opinion.

While not all of Cowboy Cupid’s matchmaking endeavors end on a positive note, “Cowboy del Amor” paints a pretty picture of the couples he brings together, and lets the audience decide for itself the motives of this somewhat bizarre promoter of trans-Rio Grande relations. One of his clients, an ex-Marine, meets a woman with a sparkling smile; the two hit it off, fall in love, and are married and have children shortly thereafter.

Mr. Thompson seems to encourage the men to remain respectful, and, as he makes clear, this is not merely about sex. But the reasoning underlying Mr. Thompson’s business can be more than a little troubling. Individual pairings might be fine – love is love, after all – but as a phenomenon, the whole thing is a bit too close to colonialism.

When the subject of Mr. Thompson’s own marriage comes up, the audience gets some insight into his views on women, and they aren’t always pretty. He married a Mexican woman, but discouraged her from taking English lessons. When she became too independent (he lamented her driver’s license and cell phone), he divorced her.

Asked to respond to criticism of his business, Mr. Thompson takes a selfrighteous stance: “Sure I received criticism for my business: you know, Christ received criticism for his.” Well which is it, Cupid or Jesus? Or is it the god of self-promotion?