El Narco is a 2010 epic black comedy / drama about the world of Mafia and organized crime in Mexico.
Drugs, guns, violence, and death: Mexico today is a world where ruthless cartels operate beyond the reach of the law, and where a bloody fate awaits if you don’t watch your step. Deported to Mexico after 20 years as an illegal in the USA, Benny Garcia returns to the tranquillity he left behind in his sleepy rural town…or so he thinks. Much has changed, and opportunities to earn an honest living are few.
Subtitled.
Awards
- Ariel Awards Mexico 2011 – Won Golden Ariel, Won multiple Silver Ariels
- Mexican Cinema Journalists 2011 – Won Best Film, Won Best Direction, Won several other awards
- Havana Film Festival 2011 – Won Grand Coral First Prize, Best Film
- Premios ACE 2012 – Won Best Film
- San Diego Latino Film Festival 2012 – Won Corazon Award, Best Feature Film
Review by Variety
"The final film in Luis Estrada’s pitch-black comic trilogy, “Hell” limns an even more hellish vision of Mexico than the previous two installments, “Herod’s Law” and “A Wonderful World.” Its downtrodden antihero, deported from the U.S. where he lived illegally for 20 years, returns to a country unimaginably worse than the one he left, where drugs and corruption are the only games in town. Estrada’s undiluted mix of politics, corrosive humor, folkloric characters and explosive violence could easily find fans north of the border.
Denounced by the government yet championed by critics and audiences alike, “Hell” virtually swept the Ariels (Mexico’s equivalent of the Academy Awards) and tallied record B.O. receipts domestically…A master at sustaining his characters’ likability even under grotesque circumstances, Estrada maintains an absurdist irony throughout; among American helmers, perhaps only Quentin Tarantino could graft this peculiar comic mindset onto a genre film. But Estrada’s edge is sharper and angrier, his political dissection cutting bone-deep."