Herod's Law (1999)

Original title

La ley de Herodes

Directed by

Luis Estrada

Genre

drama film, black comedy film, political satire

Country

Mexico

Runtime

2h

Rated

15

Rating

8.0 of 10 from 208 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A small town mayor gets caught up in a web of political corruption. The movie uses comedy to show how power can lead to abuse and greed.

satiricaldarkly comiccorruptcynicaltensepolitically chargedbleak

What happens

Herod's Law (original Spanish title La ley de Herodes) is a 1999 Mexican satirical black comedy political film, directed by Luis Estrada and produced by Bandidos Films. The film is a caricature of corruption in Mexico and the long-ruling PRI party. Notably, it was the first Mexican film to criticize the PRI explicitly by name, which sparked controversy and led to interference from the Mexican government because of it. It is the first in a series of films directed by Estrada and starring Damián Alcázar satirizing different facets of the Mexican government and civil society - subsequent films include A Wonderful World (2006), Hell (2010), The Perfect Dictatorship (2014), and ¡Que viva México! (2023). Alcázar plays a different main character in each movie and the films are not narratively connected. The film won the Ariel Award for Best Picture from the Mexican Academy of Film. It was also awarded the Special Jury Prize in Latin American Cinema at the Sundance Film Festival. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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