Herod's Law

A bad enough leader is someone too incompetent to rule, but a worse one is someone who’s too dumb in their malicious incompetence to even realize they are indeed too incompetent to rule. A film that from the get go makes you aware that this man is beyond unable to be a good leader, but the rest is just a more darker and deranged reconfirmation of that. A hysterical and very clever political satire about the most corrupt and dangerous leaders you’ll find. It genuisly blends the comedic tone with something more malicious and disturbing under thanks to the amazing directing from Luis Estrada and the amazing performance from Damian Alcaraz. Herod’s law: fck them first or they’ll fck you. A saying in the film that perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the movie. Capturing the malicious unremorseful mindset of the the corrupt system in a more playful tone to fit the slight satirical nature. It’s an ideology that so many take on as a means of some survival or reinforcement of their power and authority. An ideology many can’t always get away with except for those in positions of power. Even if we know they did these crimes, no one will believe them because surely the ones who make the laws won’t have that high of a level of hypocrisy in power. We expect too much of our leaders because we are supposed to. Unfortunately they don’t respect how much of a high regard we hold them to as their despicable human nature still prevails, even more so with so much power. As I said, our main mayor character is still dumb, but that power he possesses manipulates him into thinking otherwise. So many times we think the power we hold equals intelligence or knowledge without realizing we may have stumbled into it out of pure luck or an overestimation of our abilities. Juan’s street smart enough to continue to manipulate his way into more power, but he’s not smart enough to realize the karma that can easily strike because of his despicable actions. The scene near the end of the new mayor being introduced into the same house is genius. It shows how these states of corruption through power are not only because of the sole ruler but also the system behind it. Juan’s story was just a mere example of the Town’s cycle of corruption and abuse of power repeating itself because of the government structure they run constantly promoting this selfish twisted ideology over trying to become an actual competent leader. The cycle of humanity is vile because the truth is human nature is vile and it’s all around us. This film also above all feels deeply personal from filmmaker Luis Estrada. It’s not only funny and humorous from his own hilarious mind, But it also heavily involves themes of Mexican culture and Mexican governmental issues I assume Luis has seen himself as a native of the country. He cares about the politics of his homeland and you can tell that by him reflecting his obvservations about their political history through his own art he gets to share with everyone. this film besides an amazing political commentary is a great reminder to not only make stories that are entertaining, but also make stories that matter and ones you deeply cherish and you’re heart.