When the surfer who seems like a big boy scout learns how to handle a gun, his odds get better.ĭel Toro in the role of the portly coke king raises this narco kill-fest above the level of a film made according to a cook book. Then things get a lot bloodier.ĭi Stefano directs his own script close to the boilerplate of the standard tale of an earnest gringo who finds that bloodletting runs in the family that he’s married into. When the bodies start piling up, Nick learns that he’s in too far. Spanish-language markets should still be strong, as should VOD once the youth audience discovers how violent this bloodbath is.Ĭall it ‘Married to the Colombian Cartel’, Di Stefano streamlines the unwieldy Escobar biography by telling the story through the eyes of Canadian surfer Nick (Josh Hutcherson), who falls for Colombia’s pristine Pacific coast, and then falls for Escobar’s dark-eyed niece, Maria (Claudia Traisac). Benicio Del Toro plays him as a frightening hulk in Paradise Lost, yet this competent narco-drama will struggle to attract today’s audience to cinemas.
Outlaws don’t come much nastier than Escobar, dead in 1993, whose notoriety peaked as a top enemy of the US between the fall of communism and the rise of Islamic terrorism. He’s a coldblooded thug in this drug thriller, written and directed without a drop of nostalgia by the veteran actor Andrea Di Stefano.ĭel Toro knows how a cynical killer can put a chill in the air, even in the tropics. Pablo Escobar, Colombia’s one-time king of cocaine, was legendary for his cruelty and treachery, and also for the warmth and generosity of a Latin Robin Hood.