Film Comment: El Evangelista

You say that you want to see a Christian comedy about a professional drug gang enforcer/assassin?  Well, here it is.

Pablo (J. Salome Martinez) always pauses before killing his victims to allow them the chance to make their peace with God.  Whether or not they do, he then fills them with bullets.  Surprisingly, though the film is extremely violent, there is no cursing.

Pablo and his assistant are bumbling hit men who eventually are able to carry out their assignments.  There is a lot of running around and shooting and killing.

The turning point for Pablo comes when he is assigned by his boss to assassinate a Pentecostal pastor who is interfering with the local drug trade.  Pablo becomes a Christian and turns his life around.  This is where the real problem with El Evangelista (2006) lies.

Pablo moves to another area and begins his happy new life.  What about his probably vengeful former associates?  What about his responsibility for numerous murders?  Did he have a responsibility to self-report to the authorities?  Should he have given his knowledge of the drug trade to the police?  Is repentance without confession really repentance?  Can we escape temporal consequences for our actions?

This is a Spanish language film with English subtitles.

Drug Use in the United States

The United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on Thursday (8 September 2011) released the results from an anonymous drug-use survey it conducted among 67,5000 randomly chosen people.  8.9% of college-age respondents to the survey reported that they regularly use illegal drugs recreationally.  The drugs include marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, LSD, inhalants, and narcotic prescription drugs taken illegally.  Binge alcohol consumption (five or more drinks on the same day), while legal, was still a problem, reported by 40.6%.

It should be emphatically pointed out to those who use any of the illegal substances that they are ethically complicit in all the crimes committed to get their drugs into their possession: smuggling, beatings, theft, extortion, bribery, murder.  And those who binge drink need to be constantly reminded of the horrible results of binge drinking: cirrhosis, fetal injury or death, domestic violence, broken family relationships, body-mangling automobile accidents and other emotional, financial, physical, and spiritual carnage.

Pothead Jesus

On 9 February 2010, in El Paso, Texas, United States Border Patrol agents arrested a Mexican woman for drug smuggling. She was driving across the border from Ciudad Juarez when her sports utility vehicle was stopped and searched. She told the agents that she had nothing to declare except some framed art; three pictures of Jesus Christ. That was true.

What the woman failed to realize was that the pictures of Jesus would be shown to Cesar the drug sniffing dog, who knew what marijuana smelled like. Thirty-one pounds of weed were packed into the backing and frames around the paintings.