Pablo Escobar is estimated to have killed 4000 people, including 500 police officers. The man has a kill count of your average Grand Theft Auto protagonist. The idea that the Cartel isn't capable of... what exactly? Prostitution? Killing women? This is real basic stuff for them.
Orange Man Bad absolutely seems to be the crux of this rather than anything factual and I think you hit the nail on the head regarding gated communities. THEY cannot imagine that people would be so evil and thus think that it is propaganda. I wonder how these people would handle something set in the Islamic State.
I vote that we delete.
So, part of the thing is that we catalogue audience reactions, not judge whether they're accurate or not. And the thing is, discussion of the movie being reactionary porn is pretty much the only discourse about the movie because it was a Box Office Bomb and no one really cared about it.
Also I feel like you're both missing the fact that it's not that the problem isn't the idea that "cartels are bad" so much as "Mexico is nothing but cartels." Which admittedly the entries could make clearer, but still.
Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
I find the "Overshadowed By Controversy" and "Unfortunate Implications" claims to be eye-rolling at best and completely absurd at worst.
For this movie, claimimg 'xenophobia' or 'racism' certainly seems like an awfully convenient way to dismiss uncomfortable topics. This is the first (and likely to be the last) time that the franchise has ever used Mexican drug cartels as the primary villains. The film never insinuates that Hispanics as a whole are somehow affiliated with cartels, and the film makes it quite clear that the cartels are not at all selective with whom they brutalize. As in real life, cartels terrorize and destroy the lives of Americans and Mexicans - Hispanic, White, and whomever else they choose.
It cannot be overstated that as evil and barbaric as the cartels are depicted in Last Blood, they are much, MUCH worse in real life, with a long history of destroying lives in America and Mexico, and an equally long history of corrupting the Mexican political and judicial systems, which only makes it more difficult for Mexican people to build a healthy and stable nation. For one example, Gisela Mota Ocampo was elected as Mayor of Temixco. On January 2, 2016, she was assassinated by a cartel after running on an anti-cartel platform... within 24 hours of taking office.
Last Blood is no more 'xenophobic' than any film that uses the IRA as the main villain. Complaining about phantom racism/xenophobia where none exists is not only ignorant of the film's message, it's also ignorant of real world issues, and it's extremely insulting to people who have been murdered, terrorized, displaced, or otherwise impacted by cartel violence. While reasonable minds can certainly differ on the overall quality of the film, Last Blood shouldn't be condemned for being "politically incorrect" or for drawing attention to cartel violence, it should be commended on that count.
Frankly, these race-baiting entries reek of a sanctimonious Gated Community mindset, and they read as yet more tiresome opportunities to complain about Donald Trump, because it simply can't be possible that he was correct about the severity of cartel violence. After all, Trump is the devil, and if he says something, it must be false, right?
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