Cartel Land

If you’re a fan of this blog, you know that I don’t watch documentaries that often.  I don’t know why, I think I like movies with narrative, so I feel like even if I find a documentary I like, usually its because there’s a great story that I’m invested in and on top of it all, I learn a lot from the viewing. A good example of this is the Netflix series Making a Murderer which I recently finished watching all of and might do a full fledged review in the near future.

But Cartel Land was a movie that I had heard great things about and wanted to watch based on my interest in border relations between the US and Mexico as well as the fact that I had just watched, and loved Sicario, a movie on the very topic. I got the opportunity to watch the film when I was simultaneously doing work and honestly, this might not have been a great choice due to the fact that I was captivated by this film.

Cartel land is a film that seeks to investigate the different factions that exist on both sides of the US and Mexican border that are finished with sitting back and letting the government do all the work containing the drug and immigration problems and go out of their way to do it themselves.

On one end you have a vigilante group in Southern Arizona called Arizona Border Recon who defend the border without any government supervision. They are led by a gruff former military man named Tim "Nailer" Foley, who at first, you would assume is just a Mexican hating racist who wants to “keep America pure”. But once you watch the film and figure out who this very real person is, even if you don’t agree with his methods or his ideals, you understand why he does the things he does and you actually can sympathize with his motives. Now his compatriots are a different story, but the movie doesn’t really focus on them. The main focus of Tim's side of the story is how he sees the US border policies as inefficient at keeping the border safe and he takes it upon himself to go out and make a difference on his own, even if it means what he is doing is not totally legal. This isn't totally fleshed out because he's never really jailed or made to respond to his actions. He does his thing, and its interesting, but at the end of the day, his group is not the most interesting part about this movie. 

That would definitely be the Autodefensas and their battle against the Cartel. 

On the other side of the border you have the Autodefensas who are a vigilante militia in Mexico who go town to town, rooting out the Carelt members in each town and bringing security they believe the Mexican government is not providing. This group is led by a very real doctor in Mexico named Jose Mireles who has the charisma and the weapons to actually take out these Cartel members and even stand up against the Mexican military.

There’s a great scene where this group is going out and rooting out Cartel members in a Mexican city. The police get wind of this and they confront the group saying they need to disarm and go with them. But the vigilantes are actually able to garner the support of the local civilians on their side and coerce the police to let them go only on the populace pressure that come with gathering the entire village in support of them.

What I’m loving about the documentaries that Netflix chooses to put onto their streaming services is that they are able to either to show documentaries that really don't pull any punches.  Both Cartel Land and Making a Murderer have the mindset that they want to make this as real as they can possibly get and really make the audience ask questions about the situations we find ourselves in in our daily lives and around the world.

Cartel Land does a great job working within what is feasible in a documentary, and that really is the only thing holding them back. For the safety of the people making the documentary, they obviously couldn’t show people getting shot in gunfights between the vigilantes and the Cartel, but they can show the calamity of the cartel, like severed heads and victims of the Cartel being hung in the streets. Regardless, the action in this movie is intense and the story is very compelling.

Unfortunately, the issue I have with documentaries at times is that in order to court people like me who enjoy narratives and drama more than learning something, these documentaries will sacrifice an even and unbiased message in order to create dramatic intrigue and paint certain characters a certain way to fit a certain arc. And while I enjoy it, it just seems too dramatic for what real life actually is.

I'm sure the lives of these vigilante groups can be pretty exciting and full of drama, but the movie really cherry picks the moments with the most juice and doesn't exactly point out the hard facts. Instead, its more interested in painting a story line picture about these characters and while I can't criticize them for creating a good story, it kind of goes in the face of people who actually died and suffered at the hands of the cartel and we're watching a movie based on the hollywood drama about it.

Maybe that's a high horse approach but it was one thing I thought about when watching this.

Overall, Cartel Land was a documentary that I thoroughly enjoyed. Whether or not the drama was shot in a specific way to tailor to myself or regular movie going audiences, I really enjoyed it and also enjoyed the knowledge I picked up about the battle between everyday citizens and the Mexican Drug Cartels.

Let me know if you agree or disagree. The fact is, I really did enjoy Cartel Land, I just get skeptical when a movie says all this is true and fact based and yet it feels like I'm watching a movie. Comment and Discuss your thoughts on Cartel Land in the comments below. You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I don't really have a good video to end this review with unless you want to see some really graphic cartel videos (which nobody wants to see) so I'll just say, another review is coming very soon so stay tuned for my review of 2015's Point Break.