Herod's Law

Incongruities of cinematic tone have rarely been so pronounced as they are here in Luis Estrada's 2000 film Herod's Law, which stirred great controversy in Mexico upon its release for its criticism of the then-dominant PRI government. The cinematic love child of Preston Sturges and Sam Peckinpah, the film's first hour is a south-of-the-border satire along the lines of The Great McGinty, with an honest buffoon appointed mayor of a penurious town in order to stifle a political scandal. But at midpoint the movie grows far darker when the new boss proves to be more brutal than either his predecessors or his handlers higher up in the party, and by the end there's as much bloodletting as in Straw Dogs. Well made, with an able cast (even if many of the roles are basically caricatures), Herod's Law is nevertheless overlong and features an over-the-top finale that almost sends the picture off the rails. Still, though it often makes its points with a bludgeon rather than a scalpel, the film has juicy targets, and it hits them more often than not. Recommended. (F. Swietek)