Outlaws - For Greater Glory (2012)

Best movie of this year hands down!

You won't be disappointed!

Good movie but grossly overrated

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The war between the atheist Mexican government and the Cristeros is a little-known part of history, which well deserves being known, since it is said that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". And history does repeat itself, with so many - and especially Christians - being persecuted because of their faith in our days as well. The film makes an especially good job in showing the impact on characters' lives of the sudden shift between ordinary times, the ending of religious freedom, and the subsequent revolt. Peaceful priests becoming guerrilla commanders, soldiers transforming into mindless slaughterers of their own people, and boys becoming martyrs. These shifts can occur quite quickly, and this gives the message that we should be very careful to defend our current well- being at all times. The cast does an overall good job in acting. However, what I didn't like much was the direction of the movie, which alternated standard western-style action with relatively slow-moving and predictable dialogs.

It is disturbing how these known American actors were willing to be part of this extreme right wing Sinarquist propaganda movie. Maybe sometime we Mexicans will afford making a movie about American history where we get everything wrong, like for instance making a movie glorifying and raising Timothy McVeigh to the status of a martyr; yeah, nonsense, that is what this movie is, a bunch of nonsense.The events of the movie happen when Mexico was in a stage of reconstruction after several decades of civil war, after an endless list of random generals tried to seize power and kept killing one another in the middle of countrywide chaotic uprisings.At that point in history, when we finally had achieved peace and the last thing we wanted was yet another uprising while nurturing our young democracy, letting the Church interfere in politics was more than unacceptable. What happens next? These bunch of cristeros upraise against the government.Mexico would be worse than it is now if those religious extremists had won. Mexico would not be a secular state now if Calles had not acted as he did.Why people would bash Calles for defending our laical state? Mexico would be worse if it was one of those religious wackos driven states.Achieving the separation of the Church from the State cost us too much blood in the 19th century just to let an uprising of traitors change that. And now it turns out that keeping our country secular was some sort of deranged Calles' evil agenda. Stupid movie.Those people hanging from those posts, had it coming.Oh and portraying the Catholic bishops as innocent servants of God with no other agenda than serving Jesus was laughable. I wonder if someone actually believes that.Finally, that kid being tortured like Jesus Christ was too much. Sinarquist propaganda.

Well, this film is a nice twist on what we've seen in film the past few decades: the atheists vs. the Christians (in this case, Catholic) and the atheists lose! It was based on on a real-life event in Mexico: the Cristeros War from 1926-29.What else stuck out was the excellent cinematography, production values and the acting and role that Andy Garcia played as "Enrique Gorosteita Velarde." Garcia gets fifth billing here on the IMDb home page but make no mistake: he is the star of this film. His slow transformation from non-believer to believer is interesting to watch.Although it may have a "religious" theme and no nudity or profanity that I can recall, there is a lot of rough violence in this film. Hence, the "R" rating.....yet I couldn't help but feel this movie still had a lot of family appeal. Being a pro-Catholic film, it didn't get much publicity or fair reviews from mainline critics. No surprise there.For those not sure about this film, I have no hesitation in recommending it. As mentioned, it has very high production values (see it on Blu-Ray, if you can), the story moves along well and the acting is just fine. It's a good story and and almost an old-fashioned type of movie epic.

Seriously! I hope Andy Garcia got paid more for delivering what it became a ridiculously line! If just they have stopped with the heroic-celestial-mediocre-agenda music, and the exaggeration on the melodramatic, I could have recommended this movie. Bottom line I have seen better, and this should be remade as a full documentary, I would be able to enjoy it, because this time...c'mon… I got it the first hundred times, "It was heroic, celestial and all, now spare me the tearfully jerking, and be objective!, The best thing of the movie? Seeing a non-Mexican actor as Rubén Blades, overshadowing everybody else! Just remember next time you have an agenda, cut it out on the subliminal message! It took me four hours to watch this movie, one nap and six trips to the kitchen, and goggling better things than this movie, don't misunderstand me some shots were good, just not good enough!