Friday 03 / May / 2024
The Short & Skinny
• WHAT TO DOWNLOAD: Narcos
• GENRE: Crime/Historical Drama (with plenty of shoot-em-up action)
• WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Drug Kingpin Pablo Escobar’s rise to power and the men on a mission to stop him
• NUMBER OF SEASONS: 2
• NUMBER OF EPISODES PER SEASON: 10
• RUN TIME PER EPISODE: 49 minutes, approximately
• ORIGINALLY AIRED ON: Netflix
• IMDB RATING: 8.9/10
• STARRING: Wagner Moura, Boyd Holbrook, Pedro Pascal, Joanna Christie, Paulina Gaitan, Stephanie Sigman, Juan Pablo Raba, Maurice Compte
Do you know who I am?” Pablo Escobar barks at his father. “The President of the United States knows who I am, the head of the CIA knows who I am. But my own father doesn’t know who I am.”
“So what?” his father retorts. “You are not worth knowing.”
Narcos is the story of Pablo Escobar, who ran the world’s most successful drug-smuggling cartels from the city of Medellin in Colombia, moving the substance over the border in everything from mattresses and false bottoms in shoes to the insides of tyres and waistcoats with concealed pockets, eventually valued at $3 billion to become the world’s most successful crime boss.
Season 1 came out last year to critical acclaim, introducing us to Escobar through the fantastic acting of Brazilian, Wagner Moura, who starred in sci-fi flick Elysium. Moura portrays the kingpin brilliantly, his razor-sharp acting effortlessly capturing the notorious criminal’s bombastic personality, and changes in his persona as he sinks deeper into the violent world of international drug trade.
What makes Narcos so brilliantly watchable is its ability to alternate between the subtle and the shocking. Escobar is not averse to taking the Colombian government head on, at one point even colluding with communist guerrillas to storm the Palace of Justice with tanks to destroy evidence, as he adopts a plata o plomo (silver or lead) mentality, either bribing officials, or eliminating them, to achieve his goals.
Yet, while fleeing from a government-sponsored manhunt, Escobar asks quietly if the safehouse they are fleeing to has a pool. “My kids love the pool, I have to give them that,” he says mournfully. Despite his willingness to take on anyone willing to challenge him, be it the rival Cali cartel, the Colombian government, or even the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Escobar’s overriding concern is for his family humanises the otherwise monstrous character.
Chasing him are DEA agents Javier Pena, played by the effervescent Pedro Pascal, who was excellent in Game of Thrones as Oberyn Martell, and the show’s narrator, Steve Murphy, played by Boyd Holbrook, who starred in both Milk and Gone Girl. Murphy’s world-weary narration tone perfectly captures the thoughts and sentiments of those who made it their life’s work to capture Escobar.
Colombia’s verdant plantations, tropical forests and concrete jungles are as dramatic as the acting, and though subtitled television shows have not often worked with English speaking audiences, the Spanish speech adds a degree of authenticity to this riveting production.
Season two is now available to download or watch on Netflix, and with 20 rollercoaster episodes spread across two brilliantly crafted seasons, director Jose Padilha’s Narcos is the perfect download for a seat-gripping weekend of binge-watching. — [email protected]
