Herod’s Law

A man nervously packs bags of money inside an office and flees into the night. A recently killed man lies nearby, and a peasant mob corners the fugitive and decapitates him with a machete.

State Governor Sánchez orders Secretary López to find an interim mayor. López assigns the task to his subordinate Ramírez, who proposes Juan Vargas as the candidate.

Vargas accepts the interim post and travels to San Pedro with his wife Gloria. They are initially elated by the prospect but quickly become disappointed upon arriving at the impoverished town.

Vargas, aided by his secretary Pek, begins to learn about the town, its history of corruption, and the key locals: Doña Lupe, the parish priest Pérez, and Doctor Morales.

Vargas travels to the state capital to request more funding, but his car breaks down on the way. An American named Robert Smith helps him under a fake name and address, promising payment; López refuses the funding but gives him a constitution and a revolver.

Back in town, Vargas studies the Constitution and discovers legal ways to levy fines and taxes against corruption. He attempts to close Doña Lupe's brothel, but she confronts him with a cleaver, and Vargas shoots her in the leg before fleeing.

Doña Lupe offers Vargas a large sum to look the other way. After some hesitation, Vargas pockets the money, marking the start of his moral decline.

Vargas introduces Robert Smith as the town's electrical engineer and lodges him at his home. Doña Lupe hires a bouncer who beats Vargas when he attempts to collect payment; later that night, Vargas ambushes the bouncer and Lupe, killing them and dumping their bodies in a ravine, leaving his PRI pin at the scene.

Morning after the killings, Vargas finds his administrative pin missing and orders Pek to investigate. He decides to frame Filemón, the town drunk, and Doctor Morales as the culprits; Morales is exiled.

While transporting Filemón to jail, the drunkard who had found the pin reveals he had the pin; Vargas kills him in cold blood and leaves the body by the roadside.

Vargas returns to his house to find Gloria cheating on him with Smith; he chains her and beats her. Pek denounces him as the worst municipal president, while López arrives, having fled, and demands the money Vargas has earned.

Vargas discovers Gloria has escaped to the United States with Smith, taking all the money. His grip on power collapses as his sanity fractures.

López returns to town; Vargas kills López and Tiburón, facing a mob led by Father Pérez and Pek. He is nearly lynched, but government officials intervene and take him into custody.

Vargas has become a Federal Deputy, presenting himself as the man who brought justice to López. Ramírez becomes administrator at the landfill Vargas once worked, and a new mayor arrives mirroring Vargas’s initial arrival in San Pedro.