Cartel Land review: Matthew Heineman’s documentary is powerful and hard hitting. One of the best of the year.
Cartel Land review
Cartel Land is the latest in a long line of intriguing documentaries released through the Dogwoof label in the UK. Matthew Heineman’s film is not only a truly magnificent visual feast in terms of the phenomenal cinematography on display, but perhaps one of the hardest-hitting and impactful documentaries of the year.
The film focusses in on Jose Mireles, a doctor in the Mexican state of Michoacán, who leads an uprising against the infamous, and indeed brutal Mexican drug cartel known as the Knights Templar. These evil bastards terrorise communities, kill children and entire families, even if they have no influence on their business. Across the border in Arizona’s Altar Valley (ka Cocaine Alley), Tim ‘Nailer’ Foley heads up the Arizona Border Recon, a team of paramilitaries intent on preventing drugs from across the border entering the United States.
Heineman’s film is almost genre-less, a heart-pumping documentary that plays almost like an edge-of-your-seat action film, though the action hits much harder here. This isn’t an episode of Breaking Bad, or Sylvester Stallone rounding up a team of mercenaries to take down the cartel; this is real, with real people; a documentary that is really quite difficult to watch in places, and even more difficult to comprehend; it doesn’t hold back.
Cartel Land review
What’s completely baffling is the apparent lawlessness in modern-day Mexico; the corruption, the lies and the thousands of people caught up in the mix of threats, and the relentless scare-mongering from these brutal cartels in today’s modern age. The film brilliantly documents this with Heineman and his camera quite literally shooting-from-the-hip on the front-line, with the narration perfectly balanced.
As we previously said, Cartel Land is not an easy film to watch, but one that you should watch. A powerful, often harrowing account of a seemingly lawless land; a documentary which is moving, frustrating, at times baffling, but always engaging. One of the best of the year.
Cartel Land review by Paul Heath, September 2015.
Cartel Land is released in UK cinemas from Friday 4th September, 2015.
