Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

westsideschl Documentary filmed on location on the US side of the border with Mexico showing the actions/views of self policing locals guarding against traffic across the border and in a separate filming the actions/views of citizens in the Mexican state of Michoacán self policing (calling themselves the Autodefensas) against cartels (mostly Templar Cartel). Very graphic depicting of violence. Also, clear presentation of the corruption/collusion within/between the government, police, Cartels and locals who benefit from all the illegal activity. The physician who organized the citizen action against the abuses of the cartels/police/government was jailed as a threat to their businesses. The cartel-government connection in Mexico parallels that of corporate-government cooperation in the US with gunmen as their emissaries and lobbyists as ours. Ironically both parallel institutions use cheap comfort/convenience opiates to keep their populations sedated/submissive/powerless.

bison_burger This is a well-done documentary on both the Mexican drug cartels and our porous border to the south. The Autodefensas, led by a Clint Eastwood-esque commanding figure who is a Mexican surgeon and passionate about protecting the lives of his fellow countrymen from the savages who control Mexico's cartels, move from town to town disarming and eradicating the local drug lords who rule through intimidation, taxation, kidnapping, and murder. Although the intentions of the Autodefensas are good, they ultimately fall prey to their own peasant culture; once established in a town, the members revert to "flirting" with the local girls and start engaging in their own forms of corruption. The locals complain in open public forums that the Autodefensas are no better than the corrupt Mexican government. When Dr. Mireles, who was portrayed as a good family man early in the movie, eventually is overtaken by his newfound power and cultural machismo, it is clear that there is no guaranteed mode of rescue available to the Mexican people, at least none from within Mexico. This is the peasant culture that America is fighting to keep out, a culture that is so wildly different than ours, a culture which continually fails to embrace a state of descent, moral behavior, and erodes every aspect of their lives from within. It becomes clear, again, that an impermeable wall will stop the flow of drugs and corruption into America - if they can't sell it, the cartels will no longer exist. Kudos to the paramilitaries on the Arizona side who have dedicated their lives to protecting our border, language, and culture.

DogFilmCritic I like a good documentary specially if it has more than one points of view in the same argument. You see the U.S. civilian border patrol and the Mexicans self defense unit against a common enemy, and how both even if there non related in anyway see eye to eye in that situation. The civilian border patrol in Arizona stopping drug and human trafficking, as both these affect there situation back home. Im not particularly fond of the idea these people have on illegal Mexicans as they look at them as scum, but one has to understand the why and they are trying to change the situation for there family's. The Selfdefence unit created by civilians in Mexico out of necessity to protect themselves from the cartels because the police and the military don't help much and more than half are corrupted, leaving them no other choice. Again i do not agree with this method but when your government gives you their back a few choices are left. In the end personally i have to agree and disagree with what i think is right and to understand the people that are involved and their determination to help their own, i recommend this but have an open mind and try to place yourself in that situation.

poe-48833 CARTEL LAND is one of those long-overdue overviews of American consumerism- of Drugs, in particular. In this documentary, we have a self-motivated militiaman "protecting the border" with Mexico- a militiaman who's a "former drug user." (I've been told by countless Users that there's "no such thing as a "FORMER" User.") Like most self-righteous Americans, this guy fails to own his own part in the bloody Drug Wars: without the Users... (All too many Users took their cue(s) from Movies and Rock and Rollers, as was pointed out in BLOW.) The neighborhood where I live is, as this is being written, a War Zone: just a couple of weeks ago, a man was shot in a drive-by shooting half a block from my house that, according to the local news, was connected to two OTHER shootings that took place the same day- one of which was a Murder. There have been three subsequent shootings in my neighborhood (two at night- one at 3 A.M.- and one in broad daylight). The daylight shooting- just two doors down- was featured on the local news; the bullet-riddled exterior of the house was on full display for all to see. This seems to be a turf war by local drug gangs. I find SYRINGES in my front yard (tossed over the fence by Users when they're done); I've caught people squatting in my driveway relieving themselves in the middle of the night; we have no heat in the winter nor cool air in the summer because a crack whore literally took a metal bar to our heating and air-conditioning unit one day in an effort apparently to huff the Freon in the system's coils; my car has been broken into twice (the cops just come and take a look and shrug it off); no one I know will even venture into my neighborhood to VISIT any more; and on and on, ad nauseum. Users in THIS country are the very Backbone of the Drug Cartels; until we can address THAT, we're just whistling past the Graveyard...