'Herod's Law'
Political savvy

THERE ARE MANY edicts leaders have used to govern, but history tends to highlight a particular "golden" rule of those who've gained power and hope to keep it: "Either fuck them or you will get fucked." So proclaims a character in Herod's Law, a cynical satire of Mexican politics that knows just where to throw its sharpened knives – it is the first film to directly attack the country's long-standing ruling party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) and was nearly banned by the now-defunct powers that be before sweeping the box office back in 2000. Finally opening here in the midst of a gubernatorial media circus and under the larger shadow of subliminal federal fascism, its timing seems eerily apropos. The small township of San Pedro de los Saguaros has a knack for unpleasantly disposing of mayors, which worries state officials as an election looms near. They need a patsy to temporarily oversee the burg until the votes are cast, so they turn to the most bumbling party member they can find: Juan Vargas (Damián Alcázar), a junkyard attendant with a Zapata mustache and a naively ideological bent. The locals run him out of town in record time. Juan returns with a law book, a gun, and the aforementioned maxim, quickly establishing authority through the time-honored political cocktail of blackmail, intimidation, and empty promises. Soon enough, he's adding murder to his modus of retaining his rule. To say filmmaker-cowriter Luis Estrada's Swiftian vision of society is dark doesn't quite cut it; his film presents a landscape of absolute corruption, where revolutions and religion can be bought and good intentions quickly morph into blind greed. Even in its broader farcical moments, Herod's Law attacks its target with such savagery that you can practically taste the blood under the laughter. (David Fear)