Cartel 2045 is a sci-fi action film about the war on drugs in Mexico that has escalated as a ruthless drug Cartel uses robots to enforce their operations.
There’s an early scene in Chris Le‘s over-the-top, independent action thriller Cartel 2045 (Originally Juarez 2045) that sees a drug kingpin barking orders to his crew as a new enforcer arrives with heavily armed robots. It quickly devolves into exactly what you’re thinking, but what’s interesting is the choice of music, Francis Travis‘ Requiem, which you will recall is most famous for its now legendary use in Stanley Kubrick‘s sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s a daring choice by Le, using such an iconic piece of music, and maybe should have signaled a pattern for the film entire, but unfortunately, despite some good ideas and a few enthusiastic performances, Cartel 2045 can’t deliver.
In the not so distant future (2045 to be exact), Mexico is pretty much a drug state, run by vicious cartels with Angel Malvado (Danny Trejo) running the show in Juarez, keeping his place with a legion of former military robots to shut down the opposition. Looking to stay ahead of the technology, he’s kidnapped a programmer named Estevan Flores (Chris Persky), forcing him to work under threats that he will lose his grown daughter Mia (Amy Savannah). Angel isn’t the only one who needs Estevan’s services though, as the US government wants him on their side, sending in a highly-trained squad of soldiers to bring him back, including Carson Wright (Bred Schmidt), a former marine with his own set of troubles, needing Estevan for a faulty chip in his head that’s causing him problems. Using advanced robots of their own, it builds to a massive showdown where Angel has a few explosive surprises waiting.
You’ll have to forgive Le for taking some shortcuts, his limited budget greatly suppressing the scope of his ambitious new world, one that he puts most effort into establishing the presence of a these robots. The story explains that these machines were initially meant to save lives, being the fodder for war and peace, but alas, things fell apart when the wrong people got hold of the tech, and soon the world is in chaos. It’s actually a pretty smart setup as a host of very bad men essentially gain all the upper hands in creating a society of ruthless corruption and militant control. Unfortunately, as the film simply can’t offer a global view of this, it’s constricted mostly to a single setting, keeping this a very centralized story.
Angel is very definitely one of the bad guys and the story tracks his rise to infamy, his misuse of drugs and iron-fisted rule building an unstable empire that is all about the firepower. In this mix is his son Gabriel Malvado (Oscar Olivares), who grows smitten with Mia, which turns out to be very beneficial for her. It at least has some interest to it. That can’t be said for much of the other side, as Carson’s backstory isn’t given enough weight to really have any impact, and Le’s script is just too heavy-handed and rote to give this a jump.
I don’t really blame movies with not a lot of money behind them for less than convincing visual effects, for it’s the story that matters. It’s just too bad that Le is of the belief that style is more important, loading his film with grainy effects and all kinds of dark splatter, not to mention stretches of Spanish with no subtitles, leaving those of us unable to understand the language not really sure what’s happening. I’ll give the filmmakers and especially the always reliable Trejo credit for momentum, the whole crew obviously trying to pack in as much hyperbolic action as they can, and for fans of such, this might satisfy.