HIGHWAY PATROLMAN

US/Mexico, 1991, 104 minutes. Colour.
Roberto Sosa, Bruno Bichir, Vanessa Bauche.
Directed by Alex Cox.

Highway Patrolman is interesting as an Alex Cox film. He made an impact in the 1980s with Repo Man and Sid and Nancy. After that he went into more specialist and eccentric kinds of films – the most mainstream being Walker with Ed Harris and Marlee Matlin in 1987. For many decades he spent some time acting rather than directing, finding it difficult to get finance for his films. From 2007 he made such films as Searchers 2.0 and Repo Chick.

The film boasts very good Mexican locations and is the portrait of a young policeman, moving from naivety through experience to assessing his conscience in terms of crime, especially with relationship to drug crime.

1. The Mexican locations, the style of photography?

2. The portrait of the city, the portrait of the countryside, the desert, the towns? Authentic feel? The musical score?

3. The blend of reality and unreality?

4. The screenplay, giving enough information, character delineation – or suggestions?

5. Pedro Rojas and the academy? Age, training, the drills, the jobs? Graduation? The family? Not having a father? The role of Anibal?

6. The police station, his arrival, earnestness? The car? Letting the perpetrator off? The sob story? The children and the iguana? Griselda and her plea?

7. Griselda and her house, Anibal and the bees? Yankees? A way of life?

8. Marriage, Maribel? Her pregnancy, the daughter? The changes?

9. The chase, the shooting, father and Griselda and death?

10. The issues of drugs, Anibal’s death? Maribel and her mother, the bonds?

11. The authorities, the burial of Anibal, his grief?

12. The issue of drugs, taking and burying them, giving them to Maribel, the stakeout?

13. Leaving, the future, Maribel, Griselda?

14. The portrait of a young man, his experiences, change from idealism to realism, the temptations? The role of authorities, legal systems, the police system?