On Monday I saw the movie "Es El Chapo?" by Charlie Minn at the Valley Art Theater in Tempe.
It's about the Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, who also just happens to be a billionaire who is routinely mentioned in Forbes Magazine as one of the world's wealthiest businessmen.
The movie was a documentary like you see on the History Channel.
Based on the news articles I have read both in the Phoenix area English and Spanish language newspapers I thought the movie correctly portrayed history as I have read it. I didn't see much in the movie that I haven't seen before in newspapers.
I am not fluent in Spanish, but I can read it reasonably well.
The movie was both in English and Spanish. Whenever English was spoken there were Spanish subtitles, and whenever Spanish was spoken there were English subtitles.
The movie raised the question
was El Chapo Guzmán really arrested in Mazatlan?They didn't give an answer to their question.
But they presented a lot of interesting questions based on facts surrounding the case.
One question raised was the arrest of El Chapo a fraud to make the new Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto look good.
Another question raised was that allegedly El Chapo has 200+ body guards, but not a shot was fired when he was arrested in Mazatlan. Nor were any of his body guards present.
Another question raised was why was he busted in Mazatlan, not Culiacán or out in the sticks where he runs his drug empire??
Another question was asked why hasn't there been any major violence since his arrest. There probably would be a power vacuum with people fighting for control of his drug empire.
Another question is why hasn't El Chapo been extradited to the USA??
The did interview a lot of Mexican citizens and almost all of then thought there was a good chance that the bust of El Chapo was a fraud put on by the government.
One thing that really ticked me off was near the beginning of the movie they interviewed an American, I think it was a college professor in El Paso at UTEP.
He seemed to say that
most Mexicans were stupid morons who don't trust their governments. While us Americans are really smart people who trust our government.Personally I think he was all mixed up on who is stupid and smart.
Mexicans in general don't trust their government, and I think they are the smart folks.
Sadly many Americans are stupid morons who blindly trust our government.
Towards the end of the movie they interviewed an ex American government official. I think he was a former high ranking DEA official out of El Paso.
The guy claimed that while the Mexican government is very corrupt when it comes to the "war on drugs", that the American government is even more corrupt.
That's something that wouldn't shock me.
The movie had an interesting segment on Jesus Malverde.
Jesus Malverde is the Mexican patron saint of dope dealers and drug smugglers.
I believe Jesus Malverde was also the patron saint of Mexican liquor smugglers who used to smuggle booze to the US during the days of the Prohibition.
Just for fun Google "Jesus Malverde"
The movie had a lot of videos of the protests in Culiacán demanding that El Chapo be freed. I have seen photos of the protests in the newspapers I read but this is the first time I had seen them live. They were quite impressive.
The protests demanding that Joaquín Guzmán Loera be freed could be expected. I have seen figures that say 1 out of every 5 people in Mexico are involved in the business of helping bring illegal drugs from Mexico to the USA. And hey, El Chapo is the man creating these jobs. The movie gave similar numbers and said the same thing.
The movie had a few scenes in Mazatlan, but not much. Mostly photos of the MiraMar Hotel where he was alleged busted. I was also surprised to see a Home Depot in the area near the airport. When I used to go to Mazatlan there really wasn't any American businesses. Hell, they didn't even have supermercados or supermarkets down there then. Just the good old fashioned mercados.