What Happens in ¡Que viva México!?
The complete story of ¡Que viva México!, from the first scene to the last, in 645 words (about 3 minutes). Spoilers throughout.
Spoilers ahead
Pancho Reyes is an educated upper class business executive at a factory in Mexico City but hails from a rural small town. He strives to support his wife Mari and their two children, while simultaneously not contacting his family for the past 20 years.
One morning, he has a nightmare about his long-estranged relatives taking his family hostage and shooting him over his refusal to share his wealth. That same day, he receives many calls from his father, Rosendo, that his grandfather died and that he needs to be present at the reading of the will and testament. Pancho does not want to know anything about his poor family, whom he abandoned in search of a better future, but his wife encourages him to go to find out if he left them an inheritance.
Pancho’s boss grants him 5 days leave and the family (along with their maid Lupita) travels to the village. Immediately they are horrified by the abject poverty and poor living conditions, but quickly become reconnected with his family.
The will reveals that his grandfather left all his property rights and land ownership to Pancho, as he was the only one in the entire family to achieve a successful career.
His uncle Regino is in the local government and reveals that the family has several years’ worth of unpaid debts worth more than the value of their home and land. However, he offers to eliminate all the debt in exchange for him purchasing all the land rights.
Shortly after discussing the proposition with his family, a truck arrives with a safe belonging to his grandfather and explicit instructions that only Pancho be allowed to open it and access its contents. Inside the safe is a revolver and millions of dollars’ worth of gold bars which Pancho and his wife plan to claim for themselves and leave everyone else behind.
Their plans are foiled by Rosendo who hears their conversation through a hole in the wall, and in retaliation some relatives burn their minivan, stranding the family there. Pancho places the gold bars in bags and buries them in the field behind the house.
Other relatives break into the house at night searching for the gold and Pancho shoots one of them dead, leading to his arrest. In jail, Regino warns Pancho that he is looking at several years in prison and offers to bribe the judge and set him free in exchange for giving him the buried treasure.
Pancho’s wife, the neighborhood kids, and later Pancho’s family frantically dig through the fields for the buried treasure, but several days pass and nothing is found. His wife and his two children return to Mexico City, except for Lupita who has fallen in love with his brother. Regino grants Pancho permission to leave prison and dig for it himself.
Many days pass, and he digs an enormous hole, eventually collapsing from exhaustion. In the end, he decides to give up all the land (and the chances of partaking in the wealth) to Regino for the chance to return to his family.
Regino, along with his son Reginito (a police officer) use their authority to evict the family, shooting tear gas into the house and forcing them all to sit in jail. He signs development contracts with a US-based Multinational corporation which brings machines to the land. Eventually they find not only the hidden bags but also an enormous gold deposit. Upon finding out that he unknowingly relinquished all ownership of the gold in the contracts, Regino dies from an apparent heart attack.
The family, freed from jail, finds that their land has been fenced off and turned into a gold mine. Pancho is demoted to a janitor. One day he wakes up to find that his formerly clean, modern house now looks like his families’, and that all of his relatives have moved in.
