Tierra de cárteles

Review: What a brilliant documentary! It really did seem like it was a feature film because it's full of action and intense drama. The director, Matthew Heineman, was lucky to gain the trust of Dr. José Mireles and Tim "Nailer" Foley, to go behind the scenes and film the gruesome problems in the Mexican state of Michoacan and the Arizona border, which is used by the drug cartels to bring drugs into America. Both stories involve heavy corruption, kidnap, horrifying murder, rape and black mail. Matthew put together enough material to tell the terrifying story about the drug cartels who will kill anybody who step in there way. Tim is an ex veteran who suffered abuse from his father and left home at the early age of 15. After working in various jobs and losing his house due to the credit crunch, he started to work alongside immigrants, who worked illegally and didn't pay any taxes. He then decided to use his savings to put together an elite force called the Arizona Border Recon in Arizona's Altar Valley, to stop the drug cartels from bringing there drugs into America and to stop the war causing any problems across the border. His small force use heavy artillery and patrol during day and night to protect his home and infiltrate the cartels various methods of trafficking drugs. As there isn't any laws to protect them, they basically take matters into there own hands and risk there life's for there country and to make sure that things don't get out of hand. While Tim is battling against the cartels, who are using the newest technology to communicate, Dr. José Mireles is also battling against the cartels but his war is to protect Michoacan and to gain control of the various towns which have many violent gang members, called the Knight Templars, who are causing havoc in there communities. After giving speeches in the various towns, he manages to put together a force called the Autodefensas, who use heavy artillery and group together in numbers to get the perpetrators out of the many villages. He successfully cleans up many of the small towns and he becomes highly respected around Michoacan. He then ends up in a plane crash, which paralysed a side of his face and seriously damages his back, so he takes time out from the Autodefensas and goes into hiding because he doesn't know if the crash was a hit from the cartels. On the anniversary of the Autodefensas, José comes out of hiding and takes back control of his elite force but everything has got out of control and a lot of the Autodefensas are using there powers to do bad things. As they haven't got the right to have guns and apply force around Michoacan, the government step in and build there own force, which pushes José out of control. All of his fellow workers join the government force because they are allowed to use guns by law and Jose's life becomes in danger because he has broken so many laws when he was in control. When they eventually catch up with José, they put him in a Federal Centre for Social Re-adaptation in Hermosillo, Sonora. Although he still gains support from the villagers, he has basically become a political prisoner who is kept behind bars to silence him and take full control of his elite force. It has all the makings for a brilliant film but as this is a documentary about true events, I found it thrilling and quite emotional, especially when you hear what some of the community went through. The story that was told by the lady who watched her husband being burnt to death, was awful and it really shows how far these cartels are willing to go, to bring fear into people's life's. There also are some intense shoot-outs which must have been extremely scary for the director, who was in the heart of the action. Anyway, this movie definitely gave a graphic insight into a world which I totally didn't know existed and right from the beginning, when the members of the cartels are cooking the "Meth", I was glued to the TV until the end. Great!

Round-Up: This brilliant documentary was put together by Matthew Heineman who brought you Overcoming The Storm, which is about several residents returning to there homes in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, Our Time, which is about 4 youths who travel across America to ask there peers serious questions about life in America today and Escape Fire: The Fight Of Rescue American Healthcare, which uncovers the U.S. Healthcare systems true design. I personally would watch Matthew's other documentaries because he really did get to the heart of the problem with this movie and put his life on the line, to the point were he didn't put on his bullet proof vest during one of the shoot-outs because he wanted to catch all of the action on camera. The movie did make me investigate what really did happen to José, who is still in prison but I did find it a bit weird that no one looked into the camera during the scenes in the various villages and the shoot-outs. That did make me question if the documentary was real but when I watched the bonus material on the DVD, I realised that these events really did happen. The cartels value for life did shock me and I can't imagine how it must be to live your life in fear, 24 hours a day. I think you can tell that I really enjoyed this film and I hope that it gets the recognition that it deserves.

Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $1.1million

I recommend this movie to people who are into their documentary/action/drama movies about a physician in Michoacan, Mexico, who leads a citizen uprising against the drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. 8/10

Are vigilantes reluctant heroes taking up arms to defend their communities? Or men of violence looking for a cause in which to fight? Can a band of local activists protect the people against a corrupt government? Or is an self-appointed institution always doomed, by its very nature, to be guilty of the same crimes it is founded to eliminate? Where does the greatest threat to a popular movement come from - the personal failings of a charismatic leader who can satisfy, but only for a moment, the people's desire for a saviour, or in the slime-ball sellouts who would replace him? These questions are deftly posed by 'Cartel Land', a documentary about the drug trade that focuses on the odd right-wing Minutemen of southern Arizona, who seem to feel it necessary to patrol the Mexican border for reasons unapparent, and the Atodefensas of central Mexico, a self-defence force fighting the drug cartels out of a self-evident desire for mere survival but which might possibly be just a new cartel in the making. The only certain conclusion from Matthew Heiman's bleak, compelling film is that the war on drugs is a war that can only be lost.

This documentary is about Mexico and cartels, but it is also about vigilantism in general. Is it OK to take the law into your own hands? Does this freedom corrupt? The documentary explores two (related) instances of vigilantism, and it does so in a critical, but nuanced way. It reflects upon the motives of the people involved, and their situation. This exploration is what really makes this documentary great. It throws some light on the situation in Mexico in a way that is both thrilling and heartbreaking - but by focusing on the acts of the vigilantes, the documentary becomes timeless.

The people behind this went to great lengths to get some really(!) impressive footage. How they convinced people involved to let them film all of this is beyond me.

A warning though: There were some scenes here where I had to look away because of the images shown.

Although he hasn't made the technical "best" documentary of the year), it's hard to see a documentary filmmaker who stuck his neck out more, literally, than Matthew Heienman to make Cartel Land (maybe Joshua Oppenheimer, in his way, put himself in danger to make his Indonesia docs, but he wasn't caught up in anything like this). He puts himself into some incredibly dangerous scenes, and from what I could tell it's not at all the case of him trying to get some extra dramatics or tension where there is none. On the contrary he follows the Mexican group the Autodefensas (at times when they are in the midst of shoot-outs and enemy fire) in their rise to become a major presence in Michoacan, Mexico, as well as how they became corrupted by the very forces they are/were up against.

So points automatically have to go to the director for that, and he clearly is passionate about this issue - and as the wisest choice he doesn't put himself into it in the slightest (very much the objective, here and there more like a war cine-journalist when with his camera on the streets and roads and interrogation rooms). But I do wish that he had stuck to the story of the Doctor Meirelles and his group, as he and the world that he's in is just more captivating and stronger as a story of a rise and fall than that of the American who is supposed to be the 'counter-point' or other side example.

His story, as a man who has split off from society (in part due to the 2008 economic collapse, among other issues), and formed a small would be (?) militia patrolling parts of the Mexican border for immigrants, could be compelling. But it's not even so much that the contrast or point-counter-point of him and the Doctor might not have some interest (I think the point ultimately is one guy really is fighting for his life and for others, and the other is more about rounding up illegal immigrants where, for some reason, border patrol doesn't seem to be around), it's more a flaw of filmmaking. I think that if Heineman had kept it all down as a story of the Autodefensas, he would have a full movie to tell, and indeed the two places - on the US/Mexico border and Michoacan, which is over a thousand miles away to the south - are so far apart that they don't have much relation to one another exactly. Of course the cartels are a problem in one spot as much as the other, yet on a simple film editing level, it throws off the balance.

This could have been two documentaries, perhaps, again to bring up Oppenheimer, as compliments to one another. It's a shame that it doesn't work much better, since there's a lot of potent, incendiary stuff here. When Cartel Land works best, it all but indicts a country for not doing far more than it should, or what the president or government claims to do (again, this is the documentary, I'd have to read up more to know if the filmmaker doesn't show more sides to what the police or other military forces may or may be doing for the Autodefensas to rise up in the first place), and that corruption and crime becomes just a fact of life. It displays another form of terrorism that seems not as apparent as, say, Islamic fundamentalism but is no less a threat to the people where it takes place, though oddly enough what the film shows is the danger of vigilantism as well.

Deep in the desert, where no legitimate government rules, a terrorist organization operates freely. Established governments fear them. They're well-financed, violent and ruthless. They control large swaths of land, including some cities and towns, causing local residents to live in fear. The members of this organization think nothing of murdering their enemies or killing just to make a point. They murder men, women and children, and even celebrate those deaths. They often decapitate their victims and sometimes use the internet to publicize videos and photos of their brutality. They even evoke the name of their god to justify their actions.

I'm not talking about the Middle East or ISIS. I'm talking about Mexican drug cartels.

The documentary "Cartel Land" (R, 1:38) shows everything I just described and more, but focuses mainly on vigilante groups who fight the cartels – on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. The film's title refers to areas of Mexico – and areas of the United States as well. U.S. Marine veteran Tim "Nailer" Foley leads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon whose volunteer members carry semi-automatic rifles and patrol Arizona's Altar Valley ("Cocaine Alley") for any sign of drug traffickers operating on the U.S. side of the border. Meanwhile, Jose Mireles leads the Autodefensas, whose members carry similar weapons in their quest to root out members of the ruthless drug cartel which operates in the area around the western Mexican state of Michoacán. Both of these vigilante groups operate outside of their government's good graces but both governments refrain from direct action against the groups, even seeming to work with them on some level.

The film alternates between following both groups as they struggle to turn back the advancing tide of cartels operating in their areas and also deal with manpower and leadership issues and with the friction between them and their respective governments. The story of these two vigilante groups is bookended by scenes shot during methamphetamine production by cartel affiliates at a remote outdoor location in Mexico. With their faces covered, this small group of men goes about their business unfettered and they even talk to the camera. At one point, their leader admits that what they're doing is wrong, but doesn't seem to care. He says that they'll continue cooking meth "as long as God allows it". Similarly, the leaders of both Arizona Border Recon and the Autodefensas justify their actions, even as some of their methods resemble those of the cartels.

"Cartel Land" does things that I've never seen before in any documentary and does others better than I've ever seen them done. I've rarely praised either of these in other documentaries, but the cinematography and the score are both magnificent. Even more impressive than how it was shot is where it was shot. Besides gaining practically unprecedented access to that secret meth lab, director Matthew Heineman embeds with these vigilante groups, following them on their missions and getting up close and personal with some of the action in some obviously dangerous situations. (The film won the directing and cinematography awards in its category at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.) The editing is also extremely impressive. The film contains more surprising reveals and vital story developments than in many traditional movie thrillers. Besides Heineman's obvious talents (and guts), it probably didn't hurt that one of the doc's executive producers is Kathryn Bigelow, Oscar-winning director of "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty". Bigelow and Heineman's film is quite simply one of the best documentaries I have ever seen and only the second one that I have ever given this grade: "A".