Parents' Guide to Facing El Chapo

This movie brings a true story to life in an effective way. At the beginning of Facing El Chapo, two federal police officers in Los Mochis pull over a stolen car on an ordinary shift, and the most wanted man in Mexico is sitting inside it. And Director Chava Cartas never lets viewers forget they are watching a movie, which gets it right by doing everything a thriller is supposed to do. The setup is efficient and specific: Arturo Carmona has picked up extra shifts because there is a baby coming, which is how he ends up on the luckiest and worst night of his career. Ninety-one minutes turns out to be exactly right, tight enough that the pressure never leaks. It is well edited, well shot, and it even has that yellow tint movies reach for whenever the subject is drug trafficking.

Herrera makes Carmona genuinely compelling, a man with an interior life that the scenes with his wife bring into view. His guilt over an earlier incident doesn't add much beyond texture, though the texture helps. Noé Hernández plays Héctor Rosales with crude jokes and real loyalty, and the chemistry between the two men who barely know each other holds the middle of the film together. Eventually Carmona and El Chapo end up alone in a room having the conversation these movies always stage, the one about how much the cop and the criminal have in common. It's a cliché but it works. Kotsifakis plays El Chapo without glamour and with enormous power, which may be the more useful correction, since the argument about whether cinema should stop flattering traffickers is a separate fight and this movie isn't really having it.