La Ley de Herodes (2000) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

This film is also known as Herod's Law

Scoop's notes in white.

Spoilers:

I getting quite an education on the quality of Mexican filmmaking in the past two years. I had no idea that there were so many good films, and so many great directors. Director Guillermo del Toro is a real up-and-comer; Alfonso Cuaron's Y tu Mama Tambien is rated 7.8 at IMDb; Alejandro Inarritu's Amores Perros is rated 8.2 (#164 of all time); and this film (dir: Luis Estrada) is currently rated 7.9. As part of its 14 nominations and 10 wins in the Ariels, La Ley de Herodes won the Best Picture award from the Mexican Academy in 2000. (Amores Perros won in 2001).

Note written in 2010, eight years after the original review:

Of the four Mexican directors I cited, Luis Estrada is the only one who has failed to become an international superstar.

• Cuaron went to Hollywood, directed a Harry Potter film, then received broad acclaim for Children of Men, which is currently #190 of all time.

• Del Toro went to Hollywood and did some Hellboy films. He cracked the IMDb Top 250 with Pan's Labyrinth, which is currently #70.

• Innaritu's Babel earned him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Picture.

Herod's Law is one of the most enjoyable comedies I've seen, and one of the best films you never heard of. It mixes laughter with serious political and sociological points, warmth, multi-dimensional characterization, brilliant concepts, and sharp cinematography. Since my Spanish is mediocre, I can't remember any other time when I was laughing out loud at the dialogue in a Spanish language film without reading the sub-titles. Good stuff.

It is set in 1949. The ruling PRI party is looking for a man to head up the tiny but troublesome town of San Pedro de los Saguaros. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there is no such saint as St Peter of the Cacti.) The party bosses need a man who is ambitious, honest, loyal to the party, and  -  most important - not too bright, because this town really sucks. It consists of fewer than 100 people, about four of whom actually speak Spanish. Enter our hero, Juan Vargas, who has been supervising a local urban dump and jumps at the honor of becoming a mayor. He relishes the opportunity to bring modernity and social justice to his new subjects. He and his wife pack their best wardrobes into their Packard, and head off proudly to the new assignment, filled with dreams of glory and respect. They stop to ask for directions in the middle of nowhere, and are crestfallen to learn that the very same middle of nowhere happens to be their new town!

As time goes on, all of Juan's ideals fall by the wayside, and he learns to exploit the local populace like every mayor before him. In an interesting ending, Juan meets a dual fate - either he is beheaded by the local villagers and replaced by another Juan, who is a clone of the idealistic, eager fool Juan used to be - or he goes on to climb through the ranks and ends up President of Mexico. Because, after all, either THIS Juan rises to the top, or another one - they're all interchangeable in a corrupt system.

The best feature of the film is the choice of actors to play Juan, who seems so lovable and meek that we could never believe him capable of the horrible acts he eventually commits. He's so sweet and naive that we still sympathize with him no matter how bad his later misdeeds. The real power of that casting is that it underlines the central point: the blame for corruption falls not on evil men, but on a system which corrupts all men, even the sweetest, by forcing them to become cruel or fail.

Although Herod's Law is a comedy, and is really an entertainment film at heart, this movie was so influential in Mexico that many people said it contributed significantly to the electoral defeat of the PRI party in the 2000 elections, after 70 consecutive years in power.