Cartel Land (2015)
Storyline
In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.
Directors
Trailer
Reviews
100
Village Voice
Cartel Land is interested in how idealism becomes corrupt.
91
Heineman, in placing himself in such danger, has managed to create a remarkable and distinctive film that takes on a difficult issue that cannot be so conveniently remedied or ignored.
90
Filmmaker Heineman vaults us into a true heart of darkness.
90
Though Cartel Land isn’t interested in making fact-filled statements about the drug war, Heineman’s ingenious conceit gets at the difficulty ordinary people have in doing something about it.
80
Matthew Heineman does break the mold in Cartel Land and gets inside citizens movements – better known as vigilantes – which overturn the cartels’ monopoly on violence, for a while.
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