Controversial U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone condemned President Felipe Calderon while presenting his new movie about the Mexican drug war in Los Angeles last Friday.
“Calderon is a disaster. He was equivalent to George Bush. It’s a shame because he brought what George Bush brought to this country, he brought a nightmare to Mexico by declaring war on these guys. Four cartels became seven cartels and there is more violence. It’s like a civil war,” said the outspoken director.
“If I upset him I’m glad, because the guy’s a thief,” Stone added the following day. “It was a stolen election and it still bothers me to this day,” he said, in reference to the allegations of voting fraud that surrounded Calderon’s razor-thin victory over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the 2006 presidential election.The director of “JFK,” “Platoon” and “Wall Street,” Stone is famed for his leftist and often polemical views.
His new movie “Savages,” is based on Don Winslow’s 2010 novel of the same name. It tells the story of two Californian pot growers who must confront a Mexican drug cartel in order to rescue their abducted friend.
The film stars John Travolta, Benicio Del Toro as well as Mexico’s Salma Hayek and Demian Bichir, who receieved a Best Actor nomination in this year’s Academy Awards for his role in “A Better Life.”
Hayek, who plays a fearsome drug lord named Elena, insisted this week that the United States must take responsibility “because it is the consumer” of drugs trafficked through Mexico, and the supplier of most of the arms used in the conflict.
“This is not just one country’s problem. That’s been made perfectly clear,” Hayek said. “We share a border and each side must take responsibility.”
“Savages” premieres in the United States on July 6 but does not hit cinemas in Mexico until October 19.