Cartel Land, film review: Up close and personal in the war on drugs

Matthew Heineman shows he has a great ear as well as eye for details in this weirdly beautiful documentary, says Charlotte O'Sullivan 
Witty and passionate: Dr José Mireles
Charlotte O'Sullivan9 September 2015

Matthew Heineman’s Oscar-tipped documentary is a blast. Like TV’s Breaking Bad it charts the rise and rise of Mexico’s drug cartels in a way that can only be described as intimate. Via two gun-toting, anti-cartel groups (one based in Arizona, one in Michoacan) we’re party to corruption, shootouts, torture and even adultery. Many of the subjects wear masks to hide their identities but it’s clear they trust the director who, luckily for us, is both reckless and nosey.

I can’t vouch for the authenticity of scenes in which Mexicans stir pots under darkened skies and explain how they learnt to “cook meth”. These guys could be making Popping Candy, for all I know. But such encounters sure seem like the real deal. They are weirdly beautiful, too — the executive-producer is Kathryn Bigelow, whose gritty-but-graceful aesthetic Heineman obviously shares.

He has a great ear as well as eye for details. A policeman accused of belonging to a cartel is thrown into a car and told, “We know about you! You’ve been deleting WhatsApp messages from three bastards!” The vocabulary is up-to-the-minute, the body language timeless. Later, a meth-cooker in the pay of the government says, “We’re the lucky ones, for now.” The phrase sounds even more plaintive when it’s repeated, at the end of the film. Define lucky.

Some critics have complained that too many gaps are left unfilled; that not enough context for the actions of group leaders, Tim “Nailer” Foley and Dr José Mireles, is provided. But I liked the lack of talking heads and/or a narrator.

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1/99

The witty, passionate, wryly charismatic Mireles — easily the more appealing of the two figures — makes you believe, for a second, that “fighting back” is a viable option. His group, the Autodefensas, seem like true revolutionaries. On top of everything else they’re efficient (a woman describes being raped by cartel members and names two of her attackers — minutes later we see them being apprehended).

That we’re allowed to be caught up in such payback draws us into the story in a crucial way. There are horrible revelations to come. And while gung-ho viewers are unlikely to be swayed by the fate of Mireles and his family your average punter will be able to put two and two together. The film suggests that wielding a gun causes more problems than it solves — a timely message, especially for Americans. Should Cartel Land do well at the Oscars, it’ll be over the NRA’s dead body.

Cert 15, 100 minutes

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