What an excellent show. Largely unhyped here in the US, this show has been on Amazon Prime in recent months and stands up with anything HBO, Netflix, or any other network can produce. Admittedly its not an Amazon product other than the money used to acquire its rights but…It deserves watching over 99% of what is out there.
Americans likely aren’t enthused by it given 2/3 of the show is subtitled as it divides its interconnected stories between Italy, Mexico, and the US for their bases. Don’t let that put you off. If you enjoy dark, modern tales of how the dirty, violent, and unfair the world actually is…this is for you.
Beautifully shot across the globe (including some of my personal favorites in New Orleans, Dakar, Casablanca) the beauty of the natural world—oceans and deserts and mountains and forests—is contrasted with that of our world which seems to be strewn with blood, lies, deception, and betrayal. Production values here are as high as any Bond film…but the “heroes” don’t escape with parkour run across rooftops…they die of disease, knives, bullets and by human hands.
Comparisons?? Well, for me (admittedly short of experience with some of the writers and directors other works) it carries similarities in style and story and violence with Netflix’s Narcos, the Sicario films, and much of Ridley Scott’s portfolio—Blackhawk Down, Black Rain, The Counselor to name a couple. No one as a character comes out looking like a hero…but you do FEEL for these anti-heroes, becoming invested in their stories and outcomes. Which is what the best of these works do. You begin to enjoy Pablo Escobar in Narcos, you begin to empathize with the hitman in Sicario…The same holds true here with the drug dealers, cocaine middlemen and Italian Mafioso.
A revelation in the work is the actor Harold Torres, who has had roles in numerous Mexican films and been up for the equivalent of an Oscar (for whatever that means) a number of times already in his young career. Here as a corrupt Mexican army soldier forming his own paramilitary narco commander he dominates the screen whenever he appears despite a lack of dialogue.
The direction too is phenomenal. When my wife comments on how much she likes the tracking shots or camera movements as a scene transitions from a hospital birthing room to the loading of trucks with soldiers on their way to massacre a birthday party, you know there is some talent behind the lens.
Don’t miss this one. Its is superb from start to finish.