I came to Narcos and its companion series very late. I’ve been seeing the banners for it on Netflix for years and knew it was pretty popular/critically acclaimed, but just never got around to it. However, my recent renewed interest in Star Wars, as I’ve said, has kicked off my fandom in earnest for both Pedro Pascal and Diego Luna, and the two of them were more than enough to get me to finally check out both Narcos series.
The scene is set in Colombia, where a ruthless, enterprising man from Medellin rises to become a cocaine kingpin. Pablo Escobar accumulates an obscene level of wealth through his massive, sprawling organization, and efforts from the DEA, the Colombian police, and certain members of the Colombian government to bring him to heel are embroiled in intense violence. The U.S.’s self-declared war on drugs is waged in Colombian streets, but while Pablo remains the DEA’s white whale, his isn’t the only cartel in the game.
That summary is strongly weighted toward Pablo and the Medellin cartel, and the brutal fights between him and the authorities do form much of the initial appeal of this dark, complicated show. However, one of the series’ strengths is the fact that it shows how the drug war is much bigger than one man, one cartel, one country, or even one region. In following the exploits of Pablo, along with the emergence of the Cali cartel as the show goes on, we also look at just how enormous the complex system of international drug trafficking is. The series involves police officers on the take, dirty Colombian politicians, CIA meddling in other countries’ revolutions, carefully-framed U.S. propaganda, DEA agents getting into bed with dangerous characters for the perceived “greater good,” and through it all, citizens getting caught up in the violence on all8 sides.
Going into Narcos, I was anticipating something along the lines of Breaking Bad, Hannibal, or the best seasons of Dexter. Personally, it never quite gets there for me. I think something about the relatively equal split in focus between the DEA and the narcos keeps the series just a bit at odds with itself. I understand what the show is doing in looking at the larger ecosystem involved, and in that sense, it’s important to get that much wider lay of the land, but from a narrative standpoint, there’s an internal tension that pulls at itself a little too hard.
Which isn’t to say that it’s not a good series, because it is. It’s intense, interesting, and well-acted, and it shies away from easy answers. But if the comparison, again, is Breaking Bad or Hannibal, it would be a tall order for any series to fully measure up to that. It’s similarly dark and morally-complex, but its storytelling is never as tight. (My fault for overly-high expectations? “It’s not Breaking Bad” isn’t the fairest of criticisms to make.)
Some really strong acting on display here, and I appreciate that the majority of the dialogue is in Spanish – characters never speak English in instances where they’d more realistically be speaking Spanish. I wasn’t familiar with Wagner Moura before this series, but he’s excellent as Pablo, gripping and unpredictable. Among his cartel, there are a lot of different characters performing similar functions, and each performer manages to keep his role distinct. Other standouts include memorable appearances from Luis Guzmán as one of Pablo’s partners, Alberto Ammann as one of the Cali leaders, and Matias Varela as a Cali security officer. On the law enforcement side of things, Pedro Pascal is every bit as cool and engaging as I hoped he’d be as DEA agent Javier Peña, although I was admittedly bummed to realize he spends a good chunk of the series in a less prominent role than his partner, Boyd Holbrook’s Steve Murphy (watching the first episode, in which Peña’s role is really small, I was like, “Why is this dude who doesn’t even speak Spanish on my screen when I could be watching Pedro Pascal right now?!”) I also really like Maurice Compte as a driven police commander and Raúl Méndez as Colombia’s president, delicately trying to navigate an explosive situation.
Warnings
Tons of graphic violence (including rape, torture, police brutality, and the murder of children,) sexual content, language (including homophobic, racial, and misogynistic slurs,) drinking/smoking/drug use, and strong thematic elements.
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