Herod’s Law (La ley de HERODES)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: D Film: B
With an
opening that conjures memories of Orson Welles’ 1958 classic Touch of Evil, it was obvious
corruption would play a major factor in producer/director Luis Estrada’s Herod’s Law (1999), in which a janitor
is picked to be a puppet leader, but this backfires when his ego kicks in and
he becomes a tyrant. It is a throwback
to Charles Chaplin’s The Great Dictator,
The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup and
Woody Allen’s Bananas, if not
totally up there. Often, it is just as
hysterical.
The title
refers to the pessimistic idea that you have to destroy anyone on site before
they destroy you, though destroy is not the obscenity used to describe the
situation. The janitor is Juan Vargas
(Damian Alcazar), who moves to San Pedro to take advantage of the chance to
make life better for himself, his wife, and the people in a way that might make
him successful beyond his wildest dreams.
The rest
of the cast is exceptional, the screenplay by Estrada, Jamie Sampietro,
Fernando Leon, and Vincente Lenero is very well-rounded, and Estrada comes up
with great comic timing in collaboration with his cast again and again and
again. No matter how funny, the film
never becomes a cartoon, and these days especially, that is not easy. Everyone’s love of this art and the joy that
accompanies it shows scene after scene. We
rarely see films with this kind of flow from any country, so to say this is a
pleasant surprise is an understatement.
It should
also be noted that Having Pedro Armendariz, Jr. references the corruption in
the James Bond film Licence To Kill,
the violent 1989 Bond involving a vendetta between him and a drug kingpin. His father Pedro Armendariz, Sr. was a big
contact for Sean Connery’s 007 in 1963’s From
Russia With Love, another man with powerful connections that crosscut
corruption. Many criticized Licence To Kill for not making more of
Armendariz’s presence. This film takes
advantage of that mistake.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is most impressive, shot very well by
cinematographer Norman Christianson. The
depth, angles, colors and approaches to shots shows a mastery of the camera. This is so good that Fox should make this
their premiere D-VHS Latino release. The
sound is identified on the package correctly as Dolby Digital 2.0 with Pro
Logic surrounds, but my machine misidentified the mix as Dolby 5.1 AC-3 and
that is wrong. As it stands, this is
some solid Pro Logic, but the end credits suggest a possible 5.1 theatrical
release, and Dolby’s own website confirms it.
The only extras are trailers for Fox’s Latino collection, this film, and
Lucia Lucia. That’s a shame, because this is a group of
filmmakers who might have had some very interesting things to say.
The best
thing that could be hoped for is that this film becomes a surprise hit on DVD
so big, that it does an unprecedented crossover that breaks ground for Latino
Cinema in the U.S. market. That would be awesome. Either way, I now want to see every film anyone
involved in this picture makes. You
should definitely make it a point to be one of the first people to see Herod’s Law because it is simply that
good.
- Nicholas Sheffo
