Rating: C+
Dir: Christian Cavazos
Star: Iván Aragón, Alexia Alexander, Luca Valentini, Israel Islas
a.k.a. El Jardin aka: Narco Killer
Narco Killer, qué está? Fa-fa-fa-FA, Fa-fa-fa-fa-FA-fa… This is strange. The film has been out for a while, to the point it left Tubi at the end of August. It certainly seems like a proper film, made with adequate resources and by experienced film-makers. At the time of writing, on the IMDb the movie has just seven ratings and no reviews, critical or user. It’s a Mexican production, set entirely in Mexico, yet is largely made in English. That was a particular surprise, to the point I wondered if I was watching a dubbed version. Apparently not. Guess I will disable the English subtitles then. It continued to feel kinda odd though.
Events unfold in rural Mexico, where Felipe (Aragón), Rosa (Alexander) and Pedro (Valentini) are kids in a farming village whose main crop is avocados. Everyone is excited about the imminent opening of a new bridge, while will give the locals access to new markets. Particularly excited is the local cartel, who decide that avocados are not a profitable enough crop (fun fact: a lot of the avocado industry is controlled by the cartels, especially in Michoacán), and decide to mount a takeover. On encountering resistance, they decide an example must be made, and slaughter the locals, including the parents of our trio. Felipe decides to go to Mexico City and get revenge on the cartel boss responsible, who ordered the attack through his vicious enforcer El Virgen (Islas), bringing Rosa and Pedro along.
The best thing about this is the end. I don’t mean this is any snarky way (for once!). It’s just that the film is most effective, once the characters reach Mexico City. Rosa strikes up a friendship with the daughter of the cartel boss, while the boys are relentlessly pursued by El Virgen, to the point I was humming the theme to Terminator under my breath. Before we arrive there, it had been fairly leisurely and laid-back: somewhat soporific, if the truth be told. This defied expectations created by the title (I had little else to go on), with only a couple of outbursts of violence: the village assault and a chase on the highway, where El Virgen catches up with Felipe temporarily.
Cavazos, making his feature debut after cutting his teeth on shorts and music videos, has a decent handle on the action, but less so on the drama. Especially in the early going, things come across as a parade of tropes, depicting stereotypical rural life, happy peasants, etc. It feels more like an educational film: Avocados and You. Again, not what I expected, admittedly something of a “me” problem. Mind you, I don’t like guacamole either, so there’s that. I would have preferred a harder lean into the cartel elements though does a good job of depicting how they permeate all of Mexican life. When Rosa confronts the boss, he says, “I haven’t killed anyone! I’m a politician!”, and that may be the scariest thing of all.