“CARTEL LAND” (REVIEW & TRAILER)

 

 

 

Review by John Delia

A very compelling documentary Cartel Land takes you into Mexico for an up in your face look at the battles for a safe community. Pulling no punches and showing how the drug producing, kidnapping, border crossing, vicious cartels have hold on the people in areas of Mexico. It also delves and makes accusations about the government’s participation in the cartels with a policy of laissez-faire. Violent, emotional, informative the film makes its way into theaters for all to see and ponder. It’s not only Mexico, as the film reaches onto U.S. soil effecting all Americans.

The film involves two factions of independent vigilantes, one in Mexico called the Autodefensas and in the United States it’s a group known as Arizona Border Recon. Each are trying to eradicate Cartels that are destroying both the Mexican and American way of life. The factions have stepped in due to the lack of government intervention in both Mexico and the United States.

Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor Matthew Heineman puts his life on the line taking his camera into Mexico in the midst of upheaval by the people of the State of Michoacán. Following a recent needless killing of 15 innocent people by the Cartel Templar in a small town in one district, the residents are in fear of their lives. Fed up with the lack of protection for his people, Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles decides to take the villager’s protection issue into his own hands. Forming a vigilante style unit called Autodefensas, he sets out to get members from neighboring towns. Armed and willing to give their lives for the people, the independent militia starts to rid cities in Michoacán of the Cartel Templar strongholds.

The story has two sides, the second involves Tim “Nailer” Foley, a man who cleaned himself of drug and alcohol abuse. He finds himself homeless, without a job and upset. After his self-rescue from his negative past, he travels around America in search of a job. In most areas he finds that illegals are getting most of the construction jobs and evading taxes by getting paid “under-the-table” for their work. “They are sucking into the (U.S.) system,” says Foley. He also found that the U.S. border has not been fully protected as the government he says wants us to believe. In retaliation and with a sense of duty he spends his last savings to set up the Arizona Border Recon, an independent unit of men willing to take on the Cartels that are bringing illegal aliens and drugs into the United States. He sets his teams up in Altar Valley, Arizona on the border of Mexico and searches for smugglers. Upon catching them he turns them over the United States Border Patrol who gladly take them into custody. When asked what he does this thankless job, he comments: “If not me, then who?”

What I’ve described is only the introduction to a film that’s violent, gut-wrenching, enlightening, terrifying and especially heartfelt at times. The film as a whole is an eye opener, especially the brutality and power of the Cartels. The message Tim “Nailer” Foley sends comes across loud and clear that if we are going to act like a country we need to protect ourselves no matter what it takes.

To show the difficulty of making this film I am including this statement from Director Matthew Heineman: “I was compelled to make Cartel Land after reading media accounts of Nailer and El Doctor, the film’s main characters. I was immediately drawn to know more about their worlds, in which everyday citizens have been forced to take the law into their hands. I wanted to tell their stories from an intimate, yet action-driven verité perspective, without outside experts or text cards. It took many months to gain their trust and to gain the access that I needed to tell this story… Having no experience filming in risky situations, Cartel Land pushed me into some pretty precarious places – I’ve been in shootouts on the streets of Michoacán and in Breaking Bad-like meth labs in the middle of the dark, desert night… I became even more motivated, almost obsessed, as the lines between good and evil became ever more blurred. The film doesn’t offer pat answers and, instead, presents a story that I believe will be interpreted and understood in many different ways. It is this moral ambiguity that intrigues me, and it emerges naturally in the story and in our characters. For me, it became a timeless story of the conflict between idealism and violence, which has eerie echoes throughout history and across the world today.”

Cartel Land has been rated R by the MPAA for violent disturbing images, language, drug content and brief sexual material. The film spools out in Spanish and English, with English Subtitles.

FINAL ANALYSIS: The best made documentary in many years. (A)

Additional Film Information:
Cast: Tim “Nailer” Foley, Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles
Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor: Matthew Heineman
Genre: Documentary, Action, Drama
MPAA Rating: R for violent disturbing images, language, drug content and brief sexual material
Running Time: 1 hr. 38 min.
Release Date: July 17, 2015
Distributed by: A&E Indie Films