Narco Cultura
Cinedigm Entertainment Group | Release Date: November 22, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comSteven BooneNov 22, 2013
Just over the Mexico/U.S. border from Juarez is El Paso, Texas, ranked the safest large city in America three years in a row now. The question that that fact begs is in part why this film is a quietly subversive masterpiece. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyNov 20, 2013
If it weren’t for "The Act Of Killing," Narco Cultura would be the year’s queasiest documentary. The film — which counterposes Quintero’s day-to-day life with that of Richi Soto, a crime-scene investigator in Juarez — is both an unflinching record of Mexico’s drug war and an investigation of how violence becomes unreal and glamorized. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 13, 2013
Interviewed in the film, Juárez journalist Sandra Rodriguez offers up this grim summation: “That these people represent the ideal of success, impunity, and limitless power is symptomatic of how defeated we are as a society.” Read full review
90
VarietyGeoff BerkshireNov 19, 2013
Narco Cultura is as overwhelming as it is absorbing. Read full review
90
Village VoiceErnest HardyNov 19, 2013
Schwarz's juxtaposition of the human cost of the drug war alongside the glamorization of its henchmen and their brutality is sobering, even depressing. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovDec 4, 2013
Narco Cultura smartly and movingly focuses on the cultural cycle of violence, beginning with a young, Los Angeles-based rapper, Edgar Quintero, whose main job is penning lyrics celebrating the orgiastically violent lifestyles of the drug thugs for his band Buknas de Culiacán. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezNov 21, 2013
Narco Cultura isn’t a documentary about runaway crime: Its actual subject is far stranger. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezNov 21, 2013
Narco Cultura is gripping, gruesome and arresting; a disquieting look a pop (sub)-culture phenomenon that is mushrooming all over the United States and Latin America. Read full review
81
Film.comWilliam GossNov 21, 2013
A potent encapsulation of how fame and finance beget fear and grief. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 5, 2013
What this film does is reveal two very different societies — both exhibiting, each in its own way, unmistakable signs of collapse. Read full review
80
The DissolveScott TobiasNov 20, 2013
Narco Cultura makes it abundantly, forcefully clear that the illicit business of narcocorridos thrives on the illicit business of cartels—and business is still booming. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid FearNov 19, 2013
Ping-ponging between grisly South of the Border carnage and Angeleno musician Edgar Quintero’s growing success as one of the subgenre’s stars, you start to see how this parasitic relationship works. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanDec 5, 2013
By the end of this troubling film, the cognitive dissonance that it highlights — between the theoretical glorification of the illegal Mexican drug industry and its actual cost in blood — is jarring. It’s an important film, but Narco Cultura is also maddeningly hard to watch. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineTomas HachardNov 18, 2013
Director Shaul Schwarz, sans judgment, presents us with two men who epitomize how accepted and engrained narco culture has become in Mexico. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 5, 2013
Interesting as it is, Narco Cultura aims to tell the story of what’s happened in Juarez and in Mexico (and, by virtue of its immense appetite for drugs, the U.S.). Instead, it feels more like a couple of intriguing chapters. Read full review
50
NPRMark JenkinsNov 22, 2013
Set to Jeremy Turner's spare and mournful score, Narco Cultura is ultimately more pensive than lurid. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJustin LoweNov 21, 2013
Passably absorbing to start, Shaul Schwarz’s examination of the issues surrounding Mexican and immigrant musicians who glorify drug lords and their exploits gradually bogs down in repetition and narrative inertia. Read full review
40
The New York TimesStephen HoldenNov 21, 2013
Narco Cultura feels like two short films sandwiched together to make a feature. One is a shallow pop-music documentary focusing on Mr. Quintero. The other is an equally superficial portrait of the embattled Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNov 21, 2013
The dissection and discussion, though well-intentioned, winds up lifeless. Read full review
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