The border between western Texas and Mexico has always been a frequent occurrence. A large river separates the United States and Mexico, and violent crimes and racial discrimination are not uncommon in its vicinity. In 1997, the 18-year-old American citizen Ezekiel Hernández lived by the boundary river. At that time, four heavily armed US Marines were lying in ambush around them. The task was to stop drug-trafficking criminals. They treated the boy as a suspicious target and shot the boy 150 yards away under the orders of their superiors. Although witnesses later came forward to testify, and the Congressional investigation team also launched an investigation, but in the end it was nothing, and no one received the accusations and punishments that they deserved. Tommy Lee Jones has been brooding about this injustice for many years, hoping to expose and accuse it in film language.
Jones started looking for a partner, because "Love is a bitch" had left a deep impression on him, so he found the screenwriter Guillermo Ariga, and invited Ariga, who was far away in Mexico City, to his home in Texas. After dinner, the two became friends in a pleasant conversation all night. A few months later, Jones brought Ariga to his large farm in western Texas (the farm), and asked him to write the script for the film, which gradually took shape in the collaboration of the two.
