Luis Estrada’s “El Ley des Herodes” (1999) with Damián Alcázar

In Luis Estrada's “El Ley des Herodes" (1999), Juan Vargas (Damián Alcázar), a long-term but insignificant member of Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, takes over as "municipal president" of San Pedro de los Saguaros, a tiny village whose previous president was murdered by the residents for his corruption. Although Vargas at first resists becoming corrupt himself, he eventually begins accepting bribes, exorting citizens, and even leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him. The movie is set in the 1940s, and now Netflix is recommending Estrada's "La Dictadura Perfecta" (2014), which also stars Alcázar (again as a man named Vargas), and which takes on political corruption in the era of fake news. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 25 July 2023)