you’re looking for something different you might well want to see this movie. It was produced by Televisa, the Mexican TV Network and also Lions-gate, which is Hollywood. I'm going to give it an extra 20 per cent because it is different from your average "criminals go off to war" a la "The Dirty Dozen". Basically because it's Mexican about Mexicans, and this time the Americans are the cartoon characters.

The various stereotypical comic characters are trotted out. The Cartel leader with many thousands of times more money than style; displaying all the gaucherie of the novae criminal rich with his enormous swimming pool and zoo, with a white lion, zebras, giraffes etc. The old veterans of the cartels. Even a Vietnam Veteran. For non-Latinos it provides a look into Mexican life, with so many now turned to crime, others have emigrated to the United States, and even with humble, minimum wage jobs, consider themselves very fortunate to make some kind of honest living. There are some laughs here, especially in the beginning. Some of the most effective and gripping scenes are in the flashbacks of the young Julian Perez and his almost fated descent into the Narco life. Comedy here is not needed; it works well in just moving the story along. The cast is first rate. I’ve seen many of these actors before. The Indian especially, Carmelo; rising out of the tomato barrel to ambush the intruders was funny.

But the humor trotted along off and on throughout the movie, it never really broke free and ran off. Living close to Mexico, one can see one obvious reason why. The Narco-Cartel War is all too real and recent; in fact it's going full tilt as we speak. This is hard for a comedy to overcome. The same can be said for the tragedy of Iraq, which brings up Afghanistan as well. You can see where this is going. Perhaps in 30 years it will be more of a joke

Still worth seeing. The provincial Mexican culture running into the Middle East. So similar and so foreign. Revealing scenes that would not surprise Mexicans or other Latinos are scattered throughout the movie as well. Besides the Mexican Film Industry needs your support.