Herod's Law

"Herod's Law" (La ley de Herodes, 1999) is a Mexican political satire directed by Luis Estrada — watch it online on iFILM. Set in a small provincial town in the late 1940s, the film tracks what happens when the ruling PRI party runs out of candidates and hands the mayor's office to the one person dumb enough to say yes.

Juan Vargas is a nobody: a party janitor with no money, no authority, and no idea what he's walked into. His supervisor in the capital sends him off with two items — a dog-eared copy of the Mexican Constitution and a loaded revolver. The lesson is delivered straight: there's only one law that works out here, and it's Herod's law. You screw them before they screw you.

Estrada made this film while the PRI still held uninterrupted power in Mexico, and distributors initially refused to release it. Damián Alcázar plays Vargas without a trace of caricature, which is what makes the character's arc from helplessness to brutality feel less like comedy and more like documentation. Stream "Herod's Law" (1999) online on iFILM.