Abdullah
Abdullah is a Moroccan goatherd, the father of two young men to whom he is trying to teach the virtue of responsibility. He is an honest, decent man who wants what is best for his family and is quite disappointed and scared when he learns of Yussef's crime.
Yussef and Ahmed
Yussef and Ahmed are Abdullah's two sons. They are just boys, but they have been given the task of using their father's new rifle to shoot jackals. Yussef is the catalyst for the plot that unfolds because the bullet he fires at the tour bus is the one that hits Susan Jones. His boyish mistake and misjudgment sets into motion a number of catastrophic events. Ahmed is the older brother, less reckless than Yussef. Despite their differences, the brothers are quite close.
Hassan Ibrahim
Ibrahim is a merchant in the village, and Abdullah's friend and neighbor. He sells Abdullah the rifle that he was given by a Japanese tourist, so that Abdullah can protect his goats from jackals. He is very much an innocent bystander drawn into events by virtue of his accidental ownership of the rifle.
Susan Jones
Susan is an American tourist visiting Morocco with her husband, Richard. The couple recently lost their third baby to S.I.D.S., and are not coping well. Susan is angry, sad and extremely wound-up, skeptical of their trip, snobby about the conditions, and dismissive of Richard. When she is wounded by the bullet, she is stoic and strong, waiting for help. In the process of recovering in the house in Morocco, Susan finds room in her heart to forgive Richard for his apparent distance following the baby's death (an affair is implied).
Richard Jones
Richard is Susan's husband, and is also struggling with his grief over the loss of their child. He does not know how to verbalize his emotions and feelings of loss and so has drifted from Susan, leaving her feeling isolated. After Susan is shot, he becomes panicked but proactive about finding her care, and the incident jolts him into a new level of intimacy with his wife.
Debbie and Mike Jones
Debbie and Mike are Susan and Richard's children. They are unaware that the trip to Tijuana is potentially dangerous, and have a positive experience at the wedding, until they find themselves lost in the desert.
Amelia
Amelia is a Mexican nanny who takes care of the Jones children. She loves the children like her own because she has taken care of them for many years. While she would never do anything to endanger them, she finds herself in a compromising position when they get stopped at the border and her nephew Santiago makes a run for it. Amelia is loving and nurturing towards the children, but her relationship to them cannot save her from getting deported for working illegally in California.
Santiago
Amelia's nephew is a good man with an irreverent and rebellious side that comes back to bite him when he tries to drive Amelia and the Jones children across the border while intoxicated. He is portrayed as a reckless and foolhardy young man who does not know how to keep his head down in the face of corrupt authorities.
Chieko Wataya
Chieko is a deaf Japanese teen who is grieving the recent suicide of her mother and grappling with her feelings of isolation as someone living with a disability. When we meet her, she has started acting very provocatively as a way of counteracting her sense of loneliness as a deaf person. She flashes some boys at a restaurant, tries to seduce her dentist, and even comes on to a detective investigating her father's ownership of the rifle sold to Abdullah.
Yasujiro Wataya
Yasujiro is Chieko's father. He loves her but does not know how to connect to her emotionally. He is suspected of "gun running" and selling black market weapons to buyers in Morocco; however, he explains that he gave the rifle to Hassan as a thank-you gift for acting as his tour guide in Morocco.
Kenji Mamiya
Mamiya is investigating the "sale" of the Winchester rifle, although Chieko believes that he is investigating the circumstances of her mother's suicide. He is an honorable detective who is kind to Chieko even after she throws herself at him sexually. He is an unlikely confidant for the troubled teenager.
