HIGHWAY PATROLMAN

Pedro Rojas is an idealist in the Spanish film THE HIGHWAY PATROLMAN, but in the corrupt and dangerous world of the Mexican Highway Patrol, Pedro fails to keep his idealism intact. An eager beaver, Pedro seeks to administer the law; however, in the opening scene, he is reprimanded for not comprehending that bribery and corruption come before proper enforcement of the law. Thus, assigned to the barren hinterlands of northern Durango after graduation from officer’s training school, Pedro reluctantly consents to taking bribes after being pressured by his commanding officers and his greedy wife, whom he married after stopping her for a traffic violation. Trapped in a disastrous marriage, Pedro takes up with a prostitute. Pedro destroys his patrol car in a fit of anger, robs dead accident victims and chases dangerous drug runners. After drug runners kill his best friend, Pedro begins his own war against them. When the Highway Patrol investigates him for theft, he quits the force and ends up as an aimless drifter.

THE HIGHWAY PATROLMAN brims with potential, but has no real conflict between right and wrong with Pedro himself giving in to the evil forces that surround him. The amoral existential worldview of the film makes it both aesthetically and ethically impoverished. In the final analysis, this is just an episodic existentially vapid road movie.