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How others will see it. You don't have to be a Texan to appreciate this well written and plotty expedition into Tex-Mex culture. Perhaps the movie is twenty minutes too long. Perhaps there are too many minor subplots, such as Pena's mother finally taking mercy on an woman injured crossing the border.
But on the whole, most movie lovers will be pleased. The game of "Spot the Actor" is always entertaining, and the script is high caliber. For example, the tale of a tourist trap vender and his discovered big snake suddenly becomes an analogy to the sheriff's quest for dirty laundry about his father. The mayor's comment about the work involved in catching a fish rings true concerning the distant murder of the most hated (and feared) man in town.
How I felt about it. There were many individual scenes that I appreciated. A private fails a drug test, and faces a scary interview with the base colonel. Otis extolls with pride the legacy of black Seminoles. We briefly meet Sam's ex-wife (Frances McDormand), a pill junkie supported by her wealthy father, and clinging to college football as her sole escape from despair.
Other scenes, characters, and subplots aren't as effective. It's convenient for the detectives that the body of bad old Kristofferson wasn't stripped of its mason ring and sheriff badge. A shootout at a club is an unneeded complication to bring troubled Private Johnson (Chandra Wilson) in as a peripheral character. Pena is appropriately sultry, but let's face it, her voice is nasal.
A vaguely interesting subplot involves Pena's mother (Miriam Colon), a businesswoman who works and serves fellow Mexicans, but doesn't like them very much. She has the Border Patrol on speed dial to report alien sightings. She's a tough cookie, as is Colonel Payne (Joe Morton), who perhaps is also trying (and failing) to escape his heritage through career success. Both soften up, though, just as the one-man murder investigation winds down. How convenient.