NARCOS [2015] Netflix Series

NARCOS is this little gem of a show exclusive to Netflix from what I can tell. Right off the bat, I knew it was going to be good. I’ll knock the extreme basics out of the way: I feel like this show could have been on HBO. This is a show about Pablo Escobar, the DEA trying to capture him, the politics behind all of it, and…well everything else (but we’ll get to that in a moment)

* This is not for the squeamish. This is rated R to damn sure.

* Great dialog

* Interesting stylized technique of narration

* Great acting

* Great scenery (I didn’t look up where it was filmed, but I suspect Brazil? It takes place in Columbia)

* Amazing plot

* Great (and real life) Characters

* Fantastic Cinematography


Now that we’ve blown through the basics, let’s get into the grit and what makes this show great and not so great. Since we’ve already covered the great, let’s look at what didn’t work so well. This is the type of show that aims for realism in a way that works, but does so by shooting itself in the foot.

Unless you speak fluent Spanish, this is a show where you LITERALLY CANNOT BLINK without missing a huge chunk of plot. Truthfully, I’m a smart cookie and can generally follow plots, but by the 4th or 5th episode I find this show collapsing under it’s own weight with the tangent story lines.

Unfortunately, I think by trying to cover so much it ended up distracting from the core plot line. Had the cut down the number of episodes and POV characters we’re SUPPOSED TO care about, I think it would have been much better. I think a good comparison to draw to a similar show would be “The Assets” (on Netflix), about Aldrich Ames and Sandy Grimes and (the CIA traitor and the woman who caught him respectively). That show got it right.

To be honest, though it may have been cultural disconnect, I had no idea what was going on for a pretty large chunk of the time. It felt like watching The Good Shepard (with Matt Daemon) or Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, with Gary Oldman, where the best you can hope to do is sorta kinda maybe understand the premise, and not the nuance.

The historical accuracy, though as the disclaimer says is certainly dramatized, is pretty spectacular. I think the fact this show is filmed with such bravado (for lack of better term) is what makes it work. The colors and hues are dialed in to get the mood right and except for a few scenes where actors didn’t get their lines just perfect, it really flows.

Overall, I’d highly recommend this show to anyone with a strong stomach who can take gritty crime dramas and like a bit of romance thrown in…and a bit of everything else (maybe too much). If you are willing to overlook all the gunk clogging the plot lines you are willing to care about, this is a great show. The problem is deciphering it all…