Herod's Law

A bombshell in its home country, Herod's Law is made with the kind of flair that ensures a following everywhere politicians are venal and voters hope against hope for deliverance.

Smart, sassy and much more fun than most political diatribes.

A bracingly sarcastic political comedy -- it opens on a bound copy of Mexico's Constitution, stuffed with cash -- possessed of a baleful satiric eye for hypocrisy and greed, a delicious anti-clerical bent, and pitch-perfect comic timing.

Estrada can be faulted for not fully developing these supporting characters, or for not weaving them seamlessly into his story. His eye all along is so clearly and surely on The Point that at times plot details and peripheral performances are washed over.

Suffers from its enthusiasm, so fueled by anger and emotion that storytelling grows clouded. Irreverence gives way to polemic, then to an orgy of violence.

The film is bold and passionate, but not subtle, and that is its downfall.

The angrier the film gets, the less funny it becomes, squelched by heavy-handed polemics, a maddeningly repetitive musical score, and a running time that drags its overriding joke into the ground.

I would like to start my review with a couple of words of wisdom to all those "critics" that mis-reviewed this movie: please abstain from reviewing Mexican movies. I am sure you made a couple of bucks from the many corporations that probably paid you to make such statements, but give it a break, at least don't make it obvious that you were paid off by writing a couple of lazy lines with absolutely no proof whatsoever that you even actually watched the movie. Unfortunately for you, this was not meant to be a Hollywood blockbuster movie with CG graphical effects, heroes and happy endings. This is a film made in Mexico for Mexicans and if you do not understand the political, historical or social implications behind it, then this movie is probably not for you. Maybe you don't understand the Mexican brand of comedy, Maybe you don't get Mexican history or Politics, or maybe you watched a different movie from the one I **** keep in mind that no matter what you do to bring down this movie, everyone who has actually watched it probably did so because they are bored and tired of Hollywood and pointless American movies and they probably, for sure, don't feel the same way you do. It's time for you to understand that American movies and culture is not the only one that matters in the world. It's been 12 years since this movie came out at the turn of the century, but here I am reviewing it and it is now 2011, and many more Mexican films from the resurrected Mexican Cinema have come throughout this decade, many of which make Hollywood films look like lazy B movies. It is sad because out of all the American movies I have watched this decade, absolutely none even deserve to be reviewed at all; and yes that's how bad they are. I am baffled by the fact that nobody watches good movies like this one, and instead turn to the utter crap made by Hollywood.