El Chapo
2017
Original language: Spanish
- drama
- crime
The story
A look at the life of notorious drug kingpin, El Chapo, from his early days in the 1980s working for the Guadalajara Cartel, to his rise to power of during the '90s and his ultimate downfall in 2016.
What it’s like
Hard-edged crime drama shot in warm, saturated tones, with sun-bleached daylight on dusty roads and dim, amber-lit interiors where deals are struck in close, tense rooms. The camera stays close to faces during negotiations and drifts to wider shots of hills, compounds and highways when the operation grows. Sound leans on tense, percussive scoring, sudden gunfire and the hum of nightlife, with quieter stretches that let paranoia build. Pacing is brisk and episodic, with the story moving through decades of rivalries, arrests and escapes, and the emotional core sits in the men and women who are pulled deeper into the trade, their loyalty and ambition slowly curdling. Violence is frequent and often sudden, including shootings, killings and cruelty toward rivals and informants, with some drug use and sexual material; it lands as grim and tense rather than gratuitous. The vibe is sun-scorched dread and moral corrosion, suited to a committed evening with a crime-thriller appetite. It is for viewers who want the machinery of a real-world cartel story, the power plays, and the cost of a life built on fear, and who are comfortable with heavy violence.
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