Escobar: Paradise Lost (2014)

"Escobar: Paradise Lost" is a great movie about Colombia's most ruthless, wealthiest, most powerful and certainly one of the most violent criminals of all time. It is not another Escobar biopic, instead the film provides a new perspective on him since lets you "visit" Escobar's family and estate. It recreates Hacienda Napoles quite well. Benicio Del Toro is Pablo Escobar. This is probably the best performance ever about Escobar's real character. Actor Josh Hutcherson gives a great performance as Nick, and actress Claudia Traisac who plays Maria gives a great performance. Carlos Bardem plays Drago, with a short but impressive intervention on the plot. I highly recommend you this movie.

Having just seen the brilliant Narcos series on Netflix, I didn't expect much of this movie. Therefore, I was surprised to be that disappointed.First,there are the performances by both leads. Josh Hutcherson from Hunger Games fame is so bland. We always feel as though he is somehow surprise of what's happening around him. His girlfriend's uncle is the infamous baron drug Pablo Escobar, for crying out loud! She's honest enough to say that he made his fortune in the drug trade, and, that doesn't change any of his reaction.And I wasn't more impress by Benecio Del Toro's performance, which I thought was just average, considering the nature of his character.I had a hard time believing how anybody behaved in the movie, in particular the relationship between Escobar and Nick (Hutchinson's character). Nick is so suspicious and self- cautious, it feel impossible to believe that Escobar would welcome him in his entourage.The major problem is the screenplay, which is by no means based on real story. I had a hard time figuring out if this was supposed to be some kind of a account of Escobar's life, a thriller, or just a cautionary tale. In any case, it failed on all counts, specifically on the cautionary tale dimension. Nick is never really fully integrated in Escobar's activities, and doesn't get any of the rewards. At best, he is the pool boy of the Escobar haciendas. Spoiler: The last third of the movie, which many critics have said is full of tension and is considered the "thriller" part of the movie, doesn't even make any sense. Can you really believe that Escobar would ask this gringo to take charge of a sensitive mission, involving hiding part of his fortune and killing someone?Your time would be better invested in the Netflix series mentioned above, or the documentary (available on you tube) The true story of Killing Pablo.

The movie is definitely not as bad as the critics have said. For example, I don't see any POV problem. It might not satisfy some audience by telling the story from the perspective of a Canadian surfer boy. But it fits reasonably well with the theme of the movie and the true story it wants to tell. Besides, it makes it possible to tell the story of Pablo Escobar with a much lower budget than a real full scale bio piece on him would allow.It is obvious that the director truly loves his actors and actresses giving the amount of screen time he allows the main characters to play out their emotions. But unfortunately the emotional display was neither necessary to carry the main plot, nor does it contribute much the thriller aspect of the movie. It distracts the audience more from the main plot, and make the already weak plot even weaker.Talking about the plot, it is the weakest aspect of the movie. Half of the story is spent on events that are before the movie's inciting incident. The writer might think it is absolutely necessary for setting up the story and the characters. The truth is that it only shows the lack of skills of the writer at handling its plot.The movie is not really a linear piece as many of the reviews have claimed. There is only one real flash-back at the end of the movie which is put there in place of the real ending to create a more subtle and more literary ending. Most of the confusion is caused by the movie's choice of putting the real inciting incident at the beginning of a story, as an attempt to keep the audience's attention before delving into a backstory that covers half of the movie, an exact signal that the backstory does not belong there, and that there is something fundamentally wrong with the structure of the story. This choice of plot line might not be a bad one for a romantic movie or an art-house piece, but definitely should not be there for thriller. It makes the movie feel like a badly stitched together piece of two very different movies from completely different genres. I understand the creators of the movie want to create a contrast to convey a stronger message. But this is not a novel, or a play which is split explicitly into three acts, and the audience get to take a thirty minutes break. Keep one of the two as the main plot, and the other as a subtext, either one will be much better than what it is now.I would not recommend that the writer to go back to school to really learn how to tell a story, that would be too mean. But at least send the script to a real expert who would very likely have pointed out the flaw in the plot at very beginning, and subsequent rewrites might have guaranteed a much more successful movie.I am not sure how to comment on the acting. The movie is doomed by its plot from the beginning, there is not much the actors could have done to save it. The director made a reasonable choice, to give his stars enough freedom to create the characters. Unfortunately, when it is overdone it becomes too much a distraction and makes the plot even weaker.The only acting in the movie that really deserves accolades is from the actor who played Drango. Del Toro obviously had a lot of fun playing the character Escobar, but the end result is not proportionate to the amount of creative freedom he was given. Hutcherson did a reasonable good job at portraying the emotions of the pov character that fits the "innocence lost" theme of the movie reasonable well. But he needss a better command of how to use his body to convey his emotions. Acting is not carried out only by the muscles above the neck.

This thriller is a clever blend of a real person Escobar the drug lord and a dramatized semi fictional romance between a naïve Canadian who falls in love with the drug lord's niece in Colombia. You feel you are watching a true story because of the real drug lord.The action is terrifying and builds up realistically to a climax that has Breaking Bad intensity.Benicio is totally convincing in this role that is perfect for him. He doesn't over do it which is more effective. Josh Hutcherson is actually very good. It's nice to see him away from Hunger Games as a fresh faced innocent.A powerful yet believable fable.