Narcos made me curious about the 'real' Escobar story. So I sat through all 74 episodes of El Patrón del Mal. From a Colombian perspective, the production might be acceptable and the story-line fascinating. Now I'm just a movie watcher so without disrespect to the victims I review this series as such.
1. It's far too long. Too much time is spent on victims and their funerals, on journalists, on mourning family members. (My mam recently died so the impact of a death is still fresh in my memory. How unbearable it may be, filming crying people doesn't make for a good TV-show. No disrespect intended.)
2. Did the journalists help writing the script? They emphasize their own role in a way that's hard to believe. Their meetings are lengthy, boring and hold up the progression of the story-line. Even their home situations and discussions at the dinner table are shown... Admittedly at some point I started skipping the journalists conversations and I never missed a bit of information because of it.
3. Many, many dialogues are simply illustrations of what we already know. People worrying, politicians worrying, journalists worrying, possible victims worrying, before a murder, after a murder, yes, at a certain point we got that the situation was bad. Some of these sidelines, like zooming in on murdered politicians and their families, consume up entire episodes.
4. The music is badly chosen and sounds like some free stock sound-samples used over and over again. CGI (explosions) aren't state-of-the-art either, to put it friendly, but somehow I find that easy to forgive.
5. Location indicators: before seeing a scene, we're informed where it takes place by a panorama picture of the city. The same picture of Medellin (or Bogota) with the same clouds in the air, over and over again. OK, sometimes the night shot is used.
6. What really puzzled me was the casting of Escobar. Looking at this series, Escobar was a fatso, walking around like a Teletubby, so insecure that he never looks anybody in the eye when speaking. His voice has a robotic, mechanic intonation, like he's summing up his lines. It's amazing that such a loser could ever become the worlds biggest drug-lord.
Escobar's character doesn't fit the impression that I got from real footage and pictures: a charismatic guy, gesturing, leading the pack, looking straight in the camera.
But then, everyone says this series is quite authentic so I'll have to accept this disturbing fact as being close to the truth. It spoiled my watching experience to some extent. If they only could have given Escobar some charisma.
I don't regret watching all episodes though. The series was not only informative about Escobar but also gives a peek into a world where lives don't count.
1. It's far too long. Too much time is spent on victims and their funerals, on journalists, on mourning family members. (My mam recently died so the impact of a death is still fresh in my memory. How unbearable it may be, filming crying people doesn't make for a good TV-show. No disrespect intended.)
2. Did the journalists help writing the script? They emphasize their own role in a way that's hard to believe. Their meetings are lengthy, boring and hold up the progression of the story-line. Even their home situations and discussions at the dinner table are shown... Admittedly at some point I started skipping the journalists conversations and I never missed a bit of information because of it.
3. Many, many dialogues are simply illustrations of what we already know. People worrying, politicians worrying, journalists worrying, possible victims worrying, before a murder, after a murder, yes, at a certain point we got that the situation was bad. Some of these sidelines, like zooming in on murdered politicians and their families, consume up entire episodes.
4. The music is badly chosen and sounds like some free stock sound-samples used over and over again. CGI (explosions) aren't state-of-the-art either, to put it friendly, but somehow I find that easy to forgive.
5. Location indicators: before seeing a scene, we're informed where it takes place by a panorama picture of the city. The same picture of Medellin (or Bogota) with the same clouds in the air, over and over again. OK, sometimes the night shot is used.
6. What really puzzled me was the casting of Escobar. Looking at this series, Escobar was a fatso, walking around like a Teletubby, so insecure that he never looks anybody in the eye when speaking. His voice has a robotic, mechanic intonation, like he's summing up his lines. It's amazing that such a loser could ever become the worlds biggest drug-lord.
Escobar's character doesn't fit the impression that I got from real footage and pictures: a charismatic guy, gesturing, leading the pack, looking straight in the camera.
But then, everyone says this series is quite authentic so I'll have to accept this disturbing fact as being close to the truth. It spoiled my watching experience to some extent. If they only could have given Escobar some charisma.
I don't regret watching all episodes though. The series was not only informative about Escobar but also gives a peek into a world where lives don't count.