STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful
After a tough life on the mean streets of Medellin, Columbia, among the drug gangs and pimps, Griselda Blanco (Sofia Vergara) flees to Miami with her young sons, forever having to look over her shoulders for her pursuers. Determined to survive and prosper, she seizes on a chance to make her mark in the drug business, and before long has flooded the clubs and streets with her product, whilst brutally maintaining her place at the top. All seems to be going well, until Agent June (Juliana Aidan Martinez), leads an investigation to bring her down.
"The only man I ever feared was a woman, named Griselda Blanco." This quote from Pablo Escobar appears in the opening shot of the first episode in this Netflix limited series from director Andres Baiz. When the most notorious drug lord of all time makes this claim, it certainly serves as some unsavoury publicity for what you're in for. And Baiz's short, sweet series is certainly not shy of depicting the brutal, bloodthirsty violence inherent in the world of Blanco, with a commanding lead performance from Vergara at the centre of it all.
As a limited series with a condensed amount of episodes, Baiz doesn't invest too much time in Blanco's history or backstory, although there is a sufficient amount to get an impression of who she was and what motivated her to make the choices she did. At times, the script becomes overly theatrical, with Griselda losing the self control that got her to the top too readily (most notably, a boat party sequence towards the end, where in a coke induced psychosis, her recklessness nearly has catastrophic consequences), and so the dramatic impact is lost when it becomes too frequent. While Vergara is required by the script to go wild, she is complimented by co star Martinez as the female agent on a mission to bring her down. They're two females on different sides of the law, determined to prove themselves in the male dominated worlds they both inhabit, and contrast each other quite well as a whole.
All in all, it's a successful effort in spite of its flaws, with an intriguing central protagonist, and a decent, funky soundtrack to prop it up. Sadly, it's just that notch short of perfect to stop it short of what it could be. ***
After a tough life on the mean streets of Medellin, Columbia, among the drug gangs and pimps, Griselda Blanco (Sofia Vergara) flees to Miami with her young sons, forever having to look over her shoulders for her pursuers. Determined to survive and prosper, she seizes on a chance to make her mark in the drug business, and before long has flooded the clubs and streets with her product, whilst brutally maintaining her place at the top. All seems to be going well, until Agent June (Juliana Aidan Martinez), leads an investigation to bring her down.
"The only man I ever feared was a woman, named Griselda Blanco." This quote from Pablo Escobar appears in the opening shot of the first episode in this Netflix limited series from director Andres Baiz. When the most notorious drug lord of all time makes this claim, it certainly serves as some unsavoury publicity for what you're in for. And Baiz's short, sweet series is certainly not shy of depicting the brutal, bloodthirsty violence inherent in the world of Blanco, with a commanding lead performance from Vergara at the centre of it all.
As a limited series with a condensed amount of episodes, Baiz doesn't invest too much time in Blanco's history or backstory, although there is a sufficient amount to get an impression of who she was and what motivated her to make the choices she did. At times, the script becomes overly theatrical, with Griselda losing the self control that got her to the top too readily (most notably, a boat party sequence towards the end, where in a coke induced psychosis, her recklessness nearly has catastrophic consequences), and so the dramatic impact is lost when it becomes too frequent. While Vergara is required by the script to go wild, she is complimented by co star Martinez as the female agent on a mission to bring her down. They're two females on different sides of the law, determined to prove themselves in the male dominated worlds they both inhabit, and contrast each other quite well as a whole.
All in all, it's a successful effort in spite of its flaws, with an intriguing central protagonist, and a decent, funky soundtrack to prop it up. Sadly, it's just that notch short of perfect to stop it short of what it could be. ***