The documentary “Cartel Land” opens with chilling night scenes of large-scale methamphetamine cooking in rural Mexico.
What viewers later learn is how drug production became deeply intertwined with the vigilante movement that emerged in 2013 and 2014 to oust the region’s main drug cartel.
New York-based director Matthew Heineman gained unprecedented access to gun-toting vigilantes in Michoacan.
The “self-defense” forces eventually drove the Knights Templar cartel from much of the south-western state.
Despite their successes, the groups became infiltrated by former gunmen and rivals of the cartel they fought.
Led by farmers, orchard owners and small-town doctors, the movement captured the imagination of Mexicans fed up with drug violence and a government that in parts of the country is too corrupt or too inept to fight back.
