Thursday, April 22, 2021

Xorge Noble's Drug War.

Xorge Noble told us the immoralities of illicit drug use in Cocaina: Vicio Mortal and now he brings us a new story of where & how the drugs come about. Drug pushing is brutal & many lives are taken away because of it. Much corruption & bloodshed arise in El Cartel De La Droga ("Drug Cartel").

An important meeting of drug bosses takes place where they discuss that their country (which is never named, but assumed to be South American) is declaring war on them after much pressure from other nations that are being affected by the cocaine that is swarming into their territories. The drug cartel bosses feel betrayed by their own country that has always cooperated with them, but with the sudden change of circumstances—they’re ready to fight them. It begins with the kidnapping & brutal torture of one drug lord and then the nation’s president’s daughter is kidnapped, raped & dismembered. Afterwards, it is back & forth gun battles & torture between the military & drug traffickers. All this happens while the cocaine is still being smuggled & provided by those asking for it!



El Cartel De La Droga is one of Xorge Noble’s best movies since it goes to great lengths to tell a drug war story and with whatever resources that its low budget could provide. El Cartel De La Droga is indeed an example of how anyone and with any budget can make a great movie. With a little bit of imagination and a great cast; Xorge managed to take us to a fictional country with so much corruption & crime and he even somehow pulled off having an LA nightclub turn into a presidential residence (somewhat). What’s even more intriguing is how much brutality & drug trafficking craziness the movie has! We are treated to some nice scenes of brutal-bloody torture, gun-firing action and scenes of the crazy lengths that drug traffickers go through in order to provide cocaine for the many people that demand it. One scene has producer/actor Jorge Gomez & producer/actress Yamila putting cocaine into latex condoms and another scene features Yamila getting an all-female dance group to wear fake bloody pads stuffed with cocaine inside them so they can smuggle it to its destination. It’s completely bonkers, but reality as well.


It’s fairly obvious that El Cartel De La Droga was super low-budget, but despite the short in cash; Xorge & his producers still managed to gather up an excellent cast of unknown actors and a couple of big names which are Maritza Olivares and the famous David Reynoso. David appears in only a few scenes, but regardless of that, he still pulls off playing a great President of a corrupt country trying to be good. His facial expressions & general demeanor are always believable. Maritza also appears in just a few scenes, but her scenes with her getting tortured are believable & sickening. The rest of the cast just seem believable since they have the look of drug traffickers & general scum. Xorge truly lucked out here.



El Cartel De La Droga is a grand ol’ time overall. It’s a brutal & simple movie all about drug trafficking & the bloodshed behind it which not only involves criminals, but political affiliates as well. If you enjoy Xorge’s other movies, then this one will be just as enjoyable and perhaps more so. Don’t skip it. Don’t hesitate. Just take a hit of this cocaine-induced madness and enjoy!
















































Saturday, April 17, 2021

Cocaine: Fatal Addiction.

*original review posted on 1/13/2012*
*revised on 4/17/2021*

After getting busted by the police for solicitation of prostitution; a woman named Neli (Rebeca Silva) tells her life story to a young lady beside her in the jail cell. She remembers growing up with a mother who was addicted to drugs & fully taken advantage of by a cruel & perverse boyfriend. The mother's boyfriend would also sexually abuse Neli which leads her to leave home and being taken in by a sleazy uncle whom abuses as her well. She then leaves her uncle’s home where she wanders the streets by herself and later acquires a job at a farm where her youthful days wither away out there. Neli who’s now near 40 years old; meets a young gigolo (Fernando Saenz) and falls in love with him. Barely making any ends meet; Neli gets a job as a bar girl where she not only dances with disgusting clients but also sleeps with them as well. Neli's gigolo boyfriend begins to sell cocaine for a local drug boss and this leads to Neli getting involved with drugs & dangerous criminals which intensifies her already reckless lifestyle.  



Shot on tape in various parts of Los Angeles, California; Cocaina: Vicio Mortal as serious as it wants to appear, can’t also help but look so trashy & sleazy as well. Depressing too. From beginning to end Cocaina has scenes of people involved in just about everything that’s truly fucked up. We witness sexual abuse, drug pushing & abusing and all from every character in the movie.  No one is good here. Not even Neli since she chose this lifestyle.


I’ve always suspected the late director Xorge Noble wanted to have some sort of “moral lesson” in his movies and in this one he seems to be warning us to not involve ourselves with hard drugs. Xorge it seems wanted us to see how these things of temptation can ruin one’s life so fast and so hard. A strange assumption of mine perhaps, but when you really, really look into Xorge Noble’s movies, you can see he really wanted to have a point to them even if the movie was filmed so exploitive, cheap & peculiar.  


Aside from its intriguingly depressing & grimy plot, Cocaina features an excellent cast which of course includes Rebeca Silva who was always beside Xorge through out their career in the 80’s. Here she plays an all-around tragic character and she gives it her 100% and also looks very good in it. Fernando Saenz is also great to see in this movie and it seems this was his first videohome which would lead to him starring in those type of movies exclusively from then on. Xorge Noble not only directed & wrote the movie, but also stars in it as the drug boss who takes in Fernando Saenz’s character and later betrays him & gets with Neli. What a sleazy/mean character, huh? Xorge played these type of roles often and naturally did so well since his demeanor comes off that way. And to add a cherry on top of this cocaine-induced sundae of agony; Los Terricolas (the Johnny Hoyer-fronted group) appear in the movie & perform in a sleazy night club setting. How this even happened is beyond me, but a definite charm to the movie for sure. Their performance of the song “Amor Ingrato” is bliss. 


 

9 years ago when I first watched Cocaina: Vicio Mortal, I was genuinely stunned & amazed by it. Cocaina is so depressing and looks & feels so trashy & sleazy; but you can’t help but want more of it. Cocaina caused a frenzy for me to seek out more movies just like it and this lead to many more Xorge Noble movies that I've come to have adored over the years. Cocaina: Vicio Mortal is a defining & top movie here at Trash-Mex and I can only hope you’ll get a chance to see it and enjoy it just as much as I do even after all these years that have gone by.