Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19373 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-08-25
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Formats: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English, Italian, Spanish
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 127 minutes

Amazon.com
It is impossible to predict where John Sayles will travel at any given time in his film career, but Men with Guns is one of the director's most surprising journeys. Shot in Spanish, with a little-known cast, the film is a beguiling mix of the political and the mythical. A well-heeled doctor (Argentine actor Federico Luppi) in an unnamed Latin country leaves his comfortable home, in search of former medical students who may be caught in the political violence of the countryside. Although Sayles casts an unflinching eye on the issues of poverty and "willful ignorance" (embodied by the doctor, a well-meaning but complacent man), Men with Guns has a lush visual style and a great grab-bag of songs on the soundtrack. It's a slow and sometimes dreamlike movie, but by the time we reach the end it feels as though something special has transpired. --Robert Horton

From The New Yorker
John Sayles's first film since "Lone Star" is no match for that relaxed and haunting tale. Federico Luppi (as strong here as he was in "Cronos") plays Fuentes, a government doctor, all white hair and good suits, who leaves his dignified life to track down his students who were sent, armed with medicines and high ideals, into remote areas of an unnamed Latin American country. The journey involves the getting of wisdom and the loss of faith, as Fuentes discovers the horrors that befell his protégés. The movie is calm and considered, but also schematic; you can't help feeling that you're being taught a lesson-a true and valuable one, perhaps, but it's still enough to block the flow of the drama. The story jerks along in episodes, although, to be fair, some of these are beautifully told: the most harrowing involves a priest (Damián Alcázar) whose Christian courage fails him in his, and others', hour of need. In Spanish. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Stunningly beautiful, sad, insightful.
As the Peruvian's review indicates, there are certainly Latin Americans who don't want to face part of their political reality, just as there are US citizens who like to deny or rationalize the violence of the United States of North America. The "Indian Wars" of the US empire continue as this film on the oppression of Guatemalan Mayan Indians reveals. While President Clinton did offer a near-apology for our decades of funding and organizing Guatemala's dirty war that killed 200,000 people, our corporatocracy continues to exploit the region and to wage economic warfare via NAFTA, CAFTA and the World Bank.
"Men With Guns" beautifully shows all who care the sort of brutal madness that has been taking place in Central America. I've shared this film with Guatemalan immigrants I know, and they confirm the suffering they endured at the hands of our proxy forces. These US taxpayer funded troops wiped out Guatemalan villages in the same way the Nazis wiped out Russian villages. It's such a disgrace that it happened, and that so few Americans know about it. This film offers us a tool to raise awareness, and civic groups like Global Exchange and Madre offer us opportunities to act in solidarity with the victims of US foreign policy.
I'd also recommend books by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Rigoberta Menchu (who, predictably, had a Yale professor conduct a campaign to cast doubt on her credibility - a standard psy-op tactic of our military establishment) and the DVD documentary, "When the Mountains Tremble."
Also see "Guatemala: Never Again!", the official report of the human rights office of the archdiocese of Guatemala. Sadly, Bishop Juan Girardi was murdered a couple days after turning in that report.

Decepcionante.
Entusiasmado por los comentarios previos decidí adquirir esta película.Que decepción.Lenta,aburrida con una adaptación de guión a mi criterio mal estructurada.La dirección de actores,pésima,pese a tener a Luppi y a Damián Alcazar que es el único que se salva en su corta actuación.
Pensé que tendría algo que ver con "La Ley de Herodes",extraordinaria película de Luis Estrada,pero absolutamente nada que ver.
Recomendable sólo para tus enemigos.

Human Rights
When a civl war rages through a country, the line between the good guys and the bad ones is blurred. Such is the case in Men with Guns. Both sides in conflict abuse others, even the innocent ones, to secure their goals.