Ricky & Melinda inhabit a world that is distinctly American and Latino. The film's main characters have a hard time fitting in. Ricky & Melinda are rejects, alone or misunderstood and exist in a world that does not recognize them. Ricky and Melinda have no real parents that we know of, except for Grandma whose commitment is to them. Ricky likes school and dancing and has a bad gambling habit that sometimes gets him trouble. His goal is to win and save enough money to visit a long lost mom. Melinda has no skills, can barely hold a job, has a bad temper, is lonely and finds excitement in meeting new boyfriends online via the Internet. Some of these boyfriends are not good guys. Everything changes when Ricky & Melinda's corrupt nasty ex-convict uncle memo is released from prison and comes to live with them. Memo has ideas for quick and easy ways to make money, and hustles his own family. Their lives change forever when Memo is suspected of doing something in the way of insurance fraud and Ricky and Melinda are forced by circumstance to make a decision to leave Chicago. On their journey to Los Angeles Ricky & Melinda meet a lonely drifter, an anxiety ridden hitchhiker, an older Latina woman who may have lost her son in Iraq, and a young Black woman escaping new Orleans for Vegas who imparts a small selfless gift to Melinda. At the end of the movie, Ricky & Melinda arrive in Los Angeles with little money and the expectation that everything in the end will work out for both of them. Ricky and Melinda both think they have both reached the promise land. They believe that for that one moment good luck is on their side and that they will be embraced and their life will be better. They are not ready for the reality that awaits them. In the end Ricky & Melinda come to terms with their own relationship and its meaning. Richard and Melina capture the essence of what people cope with when they lose everything and what they would do to change that out of hope or desperation or for something better.
—Richard Salazar