wf-28163
I worked in the film industry and this is a impressive achievement. The story and characterization are on the level of "Breaking Bad" or "The Wire". I watched all the episodes but skipped through some scenes that followed non-recurring characters. If you see a new character kissing his fiancé good-by before getting on an airplane, or if you see a new character lovingly embracing his wife and kids before he goes off to work, you can be assured that he will soon be dead.Anton's review accurately lists the series' flaws. I don't want to repeat other reviews so I will just add that the music is good but repetitive; the action scenes that involve guns are unrealistic because they often don't show anyone or anything hit by a barrage of gunfire; the subtitles were not written by a native English speaker.The filmmakers stretched this story out into the equivalent of 74 fourty-minute episodes. That is a slow plot pace but it remained engaging. The main draw for me was to see how the government of Columbia ended up giving Pablo Escobar his own private prison. Incarceration in Columbia is nothing like in the US. See the "Surviving Escobar" series for the autobiographical story of an Escobar gunman nicknamed "Popeye" who ended up in a Columbian prison.The series doesn't have a "where are they now" epilogue but you can find out some of that on the PrimeraHora website. The sovereignty of government of Columbia was challenged by Escobar. The same thing is happening in Mexico, now. This series has writers with a profound understanding of human nature. We have a lot to learn from them and we should be concerned about the situation South of the US border. Let's be grateful we have honest D.E.A . agents helping out there and let's hope that government does not go bad.I watched "Narcos" also. It is shorter, slicker and with better production values. It seems to show how the Americans were instrumental in getting Escobar. But the Americans are hardly mentioned in "Patron De Mal". Nationality aside, the credit goes to incorruptible cops.Andreas Parra (Escobar) gives the performance of a lifetime. He makes the character almost likable and interesting enough to continue watching. The other actors were great, also. The scene that most stands out for me was the depiction of a Ochoa brother militia leader intimidating a neophyte into going on a suicide-assassination mission.
Somethings Amiss
This was an interestingly informative series. Unlike the new Narcos show, this show gave us a complete insight of how Pablo became the terror he was. In my opinion Narcos has to get better with their storyline, as it is not as thorough as the Pablo el Patron series. Maybe because they telling it from the Narcs perspective and even though it is a good show, I feel like it is still lacking some pertinent information. Pablo el Patron took me by surprise and held me tight until the very end of the series and now I feel like I need more but the story came to an end in the right way. LOVED IT!!!!!!! I hate it took me 4 years to see it.
rhettpeter
They present the life of a drug lord as if it was some cheap daytime soap opera, they reuse the same music to maddening effect and the main character is about as menacing as Barney from Barney and friends.The show fails to create tension and has this staged feel which detracts from character depth. The story is bloated, drawn out to an exaggerated length and doesn't have the material to sustain it. The camera really should be the eye in the head of the poet but here it is used like the eye in the head of an idiot. I feel like the people who made this show did not do any research, and were incompetent in their artistic vision. I can't express my dislike for this enough. Avoid at all costs.
Watcher120
This is a superb accounting of the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar Gaviria, probably the most lethal criminal ever to live. The acting, especially by Parra, but also by those around him, is excellent. The pacing is very deliberate and you have to be patient as this is a very detailed exposition on Escobar and his times. Well worth the time and effort.My gripes are several, though minor: the program could have used a bigger budget, and paid a little more attention to historical accuracy when it came to weapons, helicopters, and the money used (the dollar bills, for example, are of an issue that was not around in the 1980's and 90's). I speak fluent Spanish so the sub-titles did not bother me, but they were often wildly inaccurate. The depiction of the Americans is a bit ham-handed, and does not accurately reflect the tremendous assistance that the DEA and the CIA gave Colombia's anti-drug forces. There, of course, was no Dept. of Homeland Security back then, yet the US Embassy seems to be run by that Department.My biggest gripe was that the producers changed the names of well-known figures. I guess this was so that certain scenes could be fictionalized, but I don't know. All in all, a great show.