Film Forum

(1991, Alex Cox) Mexican police academy grad Roberto Sosa, assigned to Nowheresville, becomes a South of the Border Serpico, as he rejects corruption and turns down bribes — until faced with the realities of providing for both his family and his prostitute girlfriend. First Mexican feature for British director (and Spaghetti Western expert) Cox, written and produced by Lorenzo O’Brien. DCP restoration. Approx. 104 min.

A KINO LORBER RELEASE

Reviews

“Cox’s most impressive come-back… More than just an exposé of widespread corruption or an exercise in cathartic vengeance…. Mack Sennett would have appreciated the movie’s clumsy cops, frantic car chases and baroque crashes.” 
– J. Hoberman, The New York Times

“A beautifully observed, morally intelligent film."
– Andrew Pulver, The Guardian

“The beautiful but arid landscape of north central Mexico is almost as much a character as Pedro, whom Mr. Sosa portrays in a performance that is at once strong and unassuming.”
– Stephen Holden, The New York Times

“While it rightly skewers American hypocrisy and complicity in Mexican drug- trafficking, [it] abounds in the timeless virtues of traditional Filmmaking... There is an epic quality to the hero’s odyssey that recalls the Westerns of John Ford and such John Huston films as Treasure of the Sierra Madre... A beautiful, gritty film, steeped in the atmosphere of vast, desert-like vistas slashed by highways sizzling in the heat.”
– Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times

"The [real] Highway Patrol weren’t exactly keen on us telling the authentic story of one of their operatives, so our production designer, Cecilia Montiel, invented a fictitious police force, complete with cars, logos, badges and uniforms… I used to think it was about the impossibility of doing good. But now I think it’s really about the impossibility of imposing goodness on others. Today it can be seen as a film about the drug war, of course — a Mexican film genre in itself.”
– Alex Cox