Skip to main content

Should you watch Cartel Land?

Who it’s good for, who it isn’t, and what’s in it. No ratings, no scores.

Cartel Land

Documentary · 2015

In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.

The sides of Cartel Land

  • A doctor leading an armed uprising in Michoacán
  • A vigilante patrol in the Arizona desert
  • Cartel violence filmed from inside it

Cartel Land is good for you if…

  • you want to hear from people living with a cartel rather than a report about them.
  • you can take a camera that stays in the room during a gunfight.
  • you like watching who really governs when the state stops.

Cartel Land is bad for you if…

  • you can't watch real bodies and real gunfire.
  • you need a story that ends with the problem solved.

About: vigilantism · corruption · violence

Closest to Cartel Land

More like this