I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

"Herod's Law" may be succinctly described as the "smoking pistola." The pistol wielded by the protagonist named Vargas enables his improbable rise to power in a corrupt Mexican system.Set around the period of 1940s, "Herod's Law" is a vintage satire of small town corruption. It also draws upon Shakespeare's "Macbeth" for a character driven by ambition to gain power and fortune, seizing on every opportunity for kickbacks in his position of mayor of the village.Egged on by his equally motivated wife, Vargas takes the payoffs from the locals, including a local brothel and the village priest. But he is on a collision course with doom that has been experienced by his equally venal predecessors.In this wildly satiric and dark comedy, things come to a head for Vargas when his political party falls, and his own wickedness is discovered. The culmination is the image of his crucifixion on the large electrical pole that embodied his slogans of "Modernity" and "Social Justice." But at his darkest moment, Vargas experiences a resurrection, somehow saved by divine intervention. The last we see of Vargas is him recounting a speech in Congress in which he has by now moved up the political ladder and even offers a justification for his bloody deeds.The film is well-scripted, well-photographed, and well-performed as a lively social satire. The acerbic wit is not merely directed at Mexico, but has a universal resonance where human nature brings out the worst in people.

Herod's Law translates into "La Ley de Herodes" which is a proverb people say frequently in politics, meaning that you're forced to do something you don't want to, but you have to do it anyways for your own good. I came in expecting something simple and boring, but I was in for a fun Mexican movie about cynicism and politics.This movie presents mexicans as lazy people and having lived here for most of my life I've become a bit lazy too so I'm just going to copy/paste the IMDb synopsis: Mexico, 1949. The fable of a janitor turned Mayor on a little town lost in the Mexican desert, who gradually realizes how far his new acquainted power and corruption can get him.Similar to director Luis Estrada's previous work, "El Infierno", expect to see a satiric view on Mexican politics, its pretty hilarious. It's not only what I now recognize as one of the greatest, but also an important film in Mexico for how it helped Mexican people vote for the other political party (PAN) instead of PRI, members of which had all been presidents since 1929.Here's some other information about it I got off IMDb: The movie release was forbidden for several years. Since filming started, the Mexican government wasn't very happy about it; mainly because it showed a bad image of that administration. Filmmakers fought back. This reached the press so the movie had to be released to avoid rumors about political censorship and released it just before the 2000 presidential elections.I wish I had it seen it earlier, I now admire it as one of the best Mexican movies ever made. I think its on par with movies like "Casino", not only for its great dark comedy and cinematography, but for its story about people living for themselves and ending up losing it all. It might be hard to find, but I couldn't recommend this and Luis Estrada's more recent work "El Infierno" any more. The acting and cinematography are also amazing.I'd recommend it to anyone who liked "Goodfellas", "Y Tu Mama Tambien", "Capitalism: A Love Story", "The Big Lebowski", "The Hangover", "Office Space", and "Bad Lieutenant".

Politically inspired `Herod's Law' weaves a familiar story of a mousy junkyard operator making his way up to a powerful position and more importantly, corruption that ultimately follow. Director Luis Estrada commands an ensemble of talented actors and masterfully executes this sharp, tough and funny material. Set in 1949, Damián Alcázar plays Juan Vargas, a newly appointed mayor, promising to bring `modernity and social justice' to San Pedro de los Saguaros, a small but troublesome town. Although Juan Vargas initially has good intentions, he is soon forced to `Herod's Law' – a sort of Darwinian way of looking at your peers. D. Alcázar's physical comedy is perfectly pitched and the scenes with Doña Lupe, the brothel madam, are especially funny.When this film was released in Mexico, it cause so much stirred that the ruling party for 70 years, PRI, was voted out. How many times can we say movies have the power to change a political system? This is 8/10.

I should say that this movie is one of the most boring I have ever seen. Sadly most of the mexican-weekend-cinema-goers this movie was better than anything. Luckily, the movie helped the mexican cinema, but not because of it's content, any movie from the 80´s (Valentín Trujillo for example) has much more content, cinematography idea, script, than this movie.If are in the mood for getting surprised or astonished, go and rent movies from the 80's or 70's, "La Ley de Herodes" besides making me feel bored, I also felt ashamed, sleepy and upset because of the money I paid for watching it.From 10, 5 points.