Highway Patrolman

Exploring some of the territory ably opened by Graham Greene, director Alex Cox examines the tangled life and morality of a young Mexican highway patrolman, Pedro (Roberto Sosa), who must negotiate that middle lane between his personal life and a difficult career in which corruption, that mainstay in Mexican life, is shown as a sometime needed touch of humanity.

At the police academy, the sergeant pulls Pedro and his pal, Anibal (Bruno Bichir), out of class to help his wife with shopping or washing the car. In class, the students are initiated into the first law of procedure--"they're always guilty of something; you pull them over first and figure out what it...