Why not to go to Northern Mexico

Rating: 9/10 (6 April 2016)

This is a fascinating, if gruesome, drama about the drug cartels of Mexico and the weird agents who 'combat' them. The film is excellently directed by Denis Villeneuve, director of the famous INCENDIES (2010). The lead character is a young woman who works with the Arizona state police on kidnapping cases. It is an instance of the most inspiring casting that someone thought of getting Emily Blunt to play the role. She is absolutely perfect. She is seconded to work with a strange group who intend to carry out raids across the border in Mexico against some of the drug lords. The script by Taylor Sheridan and direction are so clever, because the whole film is essentially based on her point of view, as she enters into association with psychotic CIA agents and a member of the Columbian Medellin drugs cartel working with them who is seeking revenge against one of the Mexican drug lords for killing his wife and daughter. Blunt's shock and incomprehension are well portrayed as she experiences this new, brutal and illegal world. Josh Brolin very scarily plays a gung-ho 'kill 'em first and then ask questions' CIA ops man, who admits that he only needs Blunt to tag along to tick a box so that he can operate within the territory of the USA on his returns from Mexico. He admits that the Columbian Medellin cartel was officially supported by the CIA and he is merely wiping out their competition to get them back in undisputed control again. He says 20% of Americans insist on 'sniffing the stuff' and until and unless they stop, the CIA has to be in ultimate control of the drugs trade. People get kidnapped, beaten up, tortured, murdered, as Blunt looks on increasingly dismayed, her protests about the illegality of it all laughed at by the others. She herself gets beaten up more than once by her 'own side'. She is dismissively informed: 'You are not a wolf, and this is a world of wolves.' The location work in Mexico is a horrifying revelation. Juarez, Mexico, is apparently nothing short of hell on earth, and the whole of Northern Mexico seems to be a wasteland of violence, murder, and crime. And people wonder why Donald Trump is getting so many votes for saying he wants to build a wall on the border! This film must have helped his campaign enormously. If you are strong enough to watch brutal films, this one has a lot to tell us.