Heineman goes through the gates of Hell and comes back empty-handed.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 10, 2015

Horribly real, an urgent and alarming account of a crisis so hellishly labyrinthine it's hard to see how anyone can escape its widening web of violence, extortion and corruption.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 7, 2015

Matthew Heineman's documentary about the Mexican drug wars plays like a real-life version of some grim Sam Peckinpah Western in which violence and corruption have become endemic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2015

The road to hell, as paved with best intentions, has never looked better.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2015

Thoroughly researched, occasionally engrossing, but ultimately frustrating.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 3, 2015

There's no doubting Heineman and his crew's audacity as they venture close to the line of fire, but the commitment to observing dispassionately at all times starts to feel a bit like a cop-out.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 3, 2015

There are scenes here unlike anything you've seen. Timely, thoughtful and supremely well-constructed, we'd be stunned if this isn't the doc to beat on Oscar night.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2015

This raw and compelling (if necessarily incomplete) documentary focuses on the recent battles between drug cartels and vigilantes along the Arizona-Mexico border.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 16, 2015

Even if it leaves you wanting more, "Cartel Land" deserves to be seen.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 16, 2015

Much of the documentary Cartel Land, an immersion into the Mexican drug traffickers and citizen vigilantes, is hair-raisingly intense.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 13, 2015

One of the year's most important documentaries ...

| Jul 12, 2015

By the end of Heineman's rattling 98 minutes, the war on drugs seems more than ever like a war destined to go on forever before being lost on every side.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2015

As the film demonstrates, this is far from a black-and-white situation.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 10, 2015

Although the film has its shortcomings and simplifications, it's a bleakly persuasive view of a decades-long combat that respects no boundaries, and seems to hold no prospect of surcease.

| Jul 9, 2015

A jaw-dropping documentary about two vigilante groups, on opposite sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, trying to stave off Mexican drug cartels.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 9, 2015

If the key to price in real estate is "location, location, location," the key to success in vérité-style documentaries is "access, access, access." Which is what "Cartel Land" has in compelling amounts.

| Jul 9, 2015

Cartel Land offers a chilling glimpse into a world of violence and vigilantism.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 9, 2015

A worthwhile report on a pressing humanitarian issue.

| Jul 9, 2015

It's one thing to invent a vigilante drama as darkly perfect as this, it's another to capture it as it actually unfolds.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 9, 2015

Some documentaries are about answers. Others are about questions. "Cartel Land" is about the hazy territory in between ...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 9, 2015