Cartel Land is a documentary about the state of Michoacán, Mexico. The drug and human trafficking cartels hit here especially hard and, due to its remote location in the Mexican landscape, the government chose not to really do anything to stop them. A group of everyday people, led by a doctor, form their own militia, the Autodefensas, to take back the state one town at a time. Then the government starts to push back and you wonder if the lack of action against the cartels is indifference or collusion. Cartel Land is as much an action film as it is a documentary. Director Matthew Heineman drives the narrative with scenes of the militia aping military tactics to track down cartel members hiding in their homes. Gunfire, violence, and brutal murder are shown without the antiseptic quality of Hollywood fiction. This is what war looks like and careful editing won't erase the heinous acts of violence committed against civilians.
The most captivating moments in the film are the interviews with two separate women chronicling the crimes committed against their towns. The cartels obtain power through extortion and then use murder and mutilation to punish those who cut off their cash flow. These two women somberly list off everyone they know who was murdered in one of these payback attacks, while footage of funerals or militia action play in the background. It's haunting and most clearly illustrates the no-path-to-victory thesis of the film.
Unfortunately, the film also includes footage shot nowhere near Michoacán, Mexico. Heineman shows us the work of Arizona Border Recon, a paramilitary organization designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The leader of the group freely admits to the designation. He denies they are a hate organization while speaking so cruelly of victims of human trafficking and desperate immigrants fleeing to the United States that you want nothing to do with him.
I get what Heineman is trying to do. He's trying to contrast the empathy the Autodefensas create in Michoacán, Mexico with the disgust elicited by the Arizona Border Recon. There is an element of foreshadowing and irony in the comparison. It just doesn't sit well. He's comparing desperate citizens of a state fighting against government, military, and organized crime with an admitted drifter pulling in other non-working people to hunt down human beings hiding in the desert as a game of "hide and seek." The whole film would work better without the Arizona Border Recon as the twists in the growth of Autodefensas are very evident without an outside perspective.
Cartel Land is a thrilling documentary with a few low points. The ambition and quality of filmmaking make up for those lulls, but leave you to wonder about what might have been with just a little more restraint.
Cartel Land is currently streaming on Netflix.