In 1901, on a small ranch in Texas, Gregorio Cortez (Edward James Olmos) shoots and kills Sherrif Morris (Timothy Scott) during an altercation at Cortez’s ranch.  On the run, Cortez rides for miles across the barren land, seeking refuge and shelter as he evades the growing gang of Texas Rangers that seek to bring him in for justice; an odyssey that would lead Cortez to become immortalized as a folk hero for immigrants living on the southern border towns.   

Robert M. Young directs the 1982 cat and mouse, western-set, chase film The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez which was released theatrically by Embassy Pictures and later restored by The Criterion Collection for home video in 2018.  Aiming for authenticity in the story of a man that would become a legend, Young, aided by the beautiful landscape cinematography by Reynaldo Villalobos, opts to shoot on location for as much of the film as possible, even using the same courthouse for the finale where Cortez’s trial was heard decades prior.  Much like Cortez’s case itself, the film is not as straightforward as the plot summary would lead one to believe and it was very ahead of its time in its fractured narrative timeline and how it purposefully left the natively spoken Spanish untranslated for audiences. 

For all the authenticity, however, the film feels stagnant at times which is not a word that should be associated with a film that finds its title character on the run. Many of the scenes play out more like documentary reenactments with a very rigid acting style as opposed to more narratively driven sequences.  At only 104 minutes long, it feels much more laborious than it actually is, and while it can be a tough sit in that aspect, the film manages to hold the audience well enough to see through to the end.  In no way could one consider The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez slow cinema, but it certainly does not move at the pace one would expect for a story such as this. The urgency of Cortez’s situation does not always translate to the screen. 

The film endures all of this in the same way that Gregorio Cortez endures.  It is an incredibly – and unfortunately – timeless story that highlights themes of racism and police relations with the migrant community in the United States.  It is a tragic arc that could have been prevented had the Sheriff actually been able to communicate properly with the Cortezes while on their property.  This part of the story is delivered in the aforementioned courtroom through an impassioned plea to the jury by Cortez’s attorney, R. B. Abernathy (Barry Corbin), and allows for a strong finale to the film. It serves as an unfortunate mirror that the seeds of racism and a refusal by people in power to seek to understand their constituents that came to a head in this small Texas town over a century ago still reflect the views of some of our modern leaders, both in the 1980s and still in the 2020s, too, amplified by the “build a wall” crowd that seeks to continue the division of society into “us” and “them”.    

Victor Villaseñor co-wrote the script with Young, based on With a Pistol in his Hand by Americo Paredes, which has its finger on the pulse of the story, but its execution from behind the camera suffers slightly.  Olmos delivers his strongest performance while on the run checking off many of the tropes as a western action star would in their own Hollywood spectacle; an interesting feat given that there is a long history of violence towards migrants within the genre.  A better balance between his scenes which play out as recollections of the events while being informed by Corbin’s framing of the courtroom narrative to the jury could have added the energy needed to really make the film stand out as something truly remarkable, but as is, the film it still manages to be an enjoyable – though not totally fulfilling – western-influenced biopic of an ordinary man who was canonized as a symbol of resilience and perseverance.