5/5
Alonso Ruizpalacios’s A Cop Movie is an outstanding documentary utilizing multiple layers of artifice in order to uncover truths about the nature of policing in Mexico. As the film progresses, it keeps revealing itself to us, keeps complicating its initial setup, turning in on itself to become something altogether more nuanced and enthralling than you might expect. Taking the audio from two very strong interviews with police officers in Mexico City, actors recreate the sequences, lip-syncing over the audio until the scene is interrupted and we begin to follow the actors and observe their process preparing for these roles. Another shift occurs when we meet the interview subjects on camera for the first time and see them tell their story for themselves. Ruizpalacios constantly interrogates his own creative process, the ethics of making a film about the police in a country where corruption runs rampant. And yet he also explores how complicated this system is – the chain of corruption that extends all the way to the officers’ superiors and their equipment supervisors, as well as the poverty that drives individuals to join the police force in the first place. This is an exceptional work of non-fiction filmmaking, bending the form to craft a stunning masterpiece.
