Herod’s Law directed by Luis Estrada tells a fictional story of a junkyard janitor who was promoted by his corrupted political party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) to mayor of a little town in the the deserts of Mexico. Herod’s Law was a very contraversial film as if intended to make the political party the PRI look bad which why it had trouble to debut in 1999. The story surrounds Juan Vargas (Damian Alcazar), who for the most part if a very naïve person, upon arriving to this new town he is informed that the residents had lynched their past three mayor for their corruption, most of these folks which do not speak spanish at all and speak an indigenous language. The protagonist main goal is to bring the modernization and social justice to the town by attempting to bring electricity with the help of an american man (Alex Cox) who he met on his way back from the capital and had fixed his car. The story kind of shows how a good law abiding mayor is soon tempted by the corruption that goes on in his city and is soon drowning in the power until at the end dies and the cycle repeats all over again. Overall the movies does a good job at showing the type of corruption that goes on in Mexico due to the political party in charge.
Something that is interesting about the film is how loyal Juan is to his political party. The PRI which is mostly known for being always in favor of the elite class rarely does anything that benefits the majority of the people occupying Mexico (the lower class). Which is why it’s almost so funny that Juan who has nothing to him and is poor resident would agree to help a political party that
