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Corruption in Mexico seems a hot cinematic topic this week, what with Robert Rodriguez’s clumsy Once upon a Time in Mexico and this brutal and broad satire from Mexican director Luis Estrada. In 1949, the mayor of San Pedro de los Saguaros, a backwater village, gets caught with his hand in the till and loses his head to a posse of enraged citizens. The ruling political party needs to avoid embarrassment before the next election, so it’s looking to appoint as a temporary replacement someone who’ll be too stupid and subservient to cause any trouble. Former "sanitary engineer" and long-time party loyalist Juan Vargas (Damián Alcázar) seems the perfect man for the job. He shows up with his wife, Gloria, determined to clean up the town and fulfill the party ideals of "modernity and social justice." But his illusions crash against the town’s sordid, fly-blown realities. Faced with the utterly compromised village priest, the bullying brothel madam, and the self-righteous local doctor, Vargas learns the law of the title quickly. Maybe too quickly; the transition from innocence to depravity is non-existent, though Alcázar’s mugging can be pretty funny. Estrada succeeds more as a stylist than as a satirist: his brooding, often metaphoric imagery recalls Sergio Leone far more than does Rodriguez’s film. In Spanish with English subtitles. (123 minutes)
BY PETER KEOUGH
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