Cartel Land

Matthew Heinenman's documentary Cartel Land (2015) is impressive and equally infuriating at the same time. In his film he chronicles two groups of vigilantes without any commentary or analysis. One group on the American side is a bunch of fringe anti-immigrationists who feel the need to keep undocumented Latinos out of the country. One of the leaders declares that he is fighting the cartels that run drugs and humans across the boarder, but I think it's more about making sure that the desperate Mexicans don't get in. They managed to only film one capture of desperate looking people. The other group-the Autodefensas , however, may be more troubling. The leaders cited the infiltration of the cartel in the legitimate institutions led to the need for a vigilante force that is not corrupt to protect the towns being harassed by the cartels. The director does a good job of showing how the cartels have terrorized the towns with beheadings and multiple murders, but shows less how it was the fault of police or militia or courts or whatever. He does show that as the group grows in power they start exhibiting the same behaviors of the cartels by robbing houses they raid, targeting personal enemies, as well as harassing women. The leader of the group is a womanizer and loses control of the group, which eventually allies itself with the corrupt militia. I would have liked some analysis of how the cartels could be beaten-perhaps how they were beaten in Columbia and other countries. It began as a story of people helping themsleves and taking back their towns and ends with the status quo keeping business the same as usual.