VOD Review – Cartel Land (Oscar Nominee) | The-m-report

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 88th Academy Awards, this film is a look at a group of people on both sides of the U.S. and Mexico border trying to combat the drug gangs bringing illegal substances and horrible violence to individuals of either government. It’s a perfect counter-example to Sicario, which is nominated at the Oscars this year for three awards and tackles very similar, if not the same subject matter.

Boths films paint a picture that the solutions for Mexico’s problems come from within, from those turning inward and aggressively going after gang members, while exposing corruption and those bringing solutions not being totally clean. The problem is that Sicario is a much more cynical, disgusting and quite frankly offensive display of that. Mainly because its depiction of Mexico is nothing but a desolate and horrible place.

Directed by Matthew Heineman, this movie shows that there are some good things to Mexico. It doesn’t wholly condemn an entire country. It presents to us a character who is the polar opposite to Benicio Del Toro’s character in Sicario. The majority of the movie follows José Manuel Mireles (pictured below). Mireles is a medical doctor who is the head of a militia or paramilitary called Autodefensas.

Autodefensas is Mexican men who have armed themselves and who actually fight one of the worst drug gangs, known as Knights Templar. The government wants to shut this militia down, but people in the streets and small towns who are hurt by the gangs support this militia.

I’m not going to deny the great cinematography of Roger Deakins for Sicario, but Deakins filmed shootouts that were all staged and fake. Heineman’s cameras were immersed in the middle or edges of actual firefights. Heineman’s cameras bear witness to actual heinous things that are more shocking than the expected, torture fantasia or revenge porn in Sicario.

It’s certainly not the best documentary of the year. It’s predicted to lose to Amy (2015), the music biopic about the late Amy Winehouse, but it’s the movie that would get my vote over the others. It’s also certainly better than Sicario.