Susan Granger’s review of “Escobar: Paradise Lost” (Radius)
Veteran Italian actor Andrea di Stefano makes his directorial debut with this thriller about a young Canadian surfing instructor who becomes involved with infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
The story opens in 1991, when Escobar (Benicio del Toro) is about to go to prison. But before he turns himself in, he decides to hide his fortune, giving Nick (Josh Hutcherson) a 9-millimenter gun and detailed instructions how to stash the loot in a cave and then kill the guide who has been enlisted to help.
So how did Nick get into this mess? That’s told in flashbacks.
Apparently, he was riding the waves of Medellin’s beaches with his brother Dylan (Brady Corbet) when he met vivacious, idealistic Maria (Spanish actress Claudia Traisac), Escobar’s favorite niece.
After being helicoptered onto Escobar’s sprawling hacienda in the jungle for a lavish birthday celebration, Nick discovers the then-popular politician has just renovated a new health clinic for the poor. And when he naively inquires how Uncle Pablo got rich, Maria blithely answers, “Cocaine!”
She explains that people in this tropical region have been chewing coca leaves for centuries and Uncle Pablo is just “exporting the national product.” But it’s not that simple.
When Nick is assaulted by some thugs in town, he mentions it to Escobar, who promptly “takes care of it.” The bullies are subsequently murdered and found hanging by their feet from a tree.
Even after Nick marries Maria and is absorbed into Escobar’s powerful web of deception and intrigue, he doesn’t seem to realize what’s happening until Colombia’s Minister of Justice is viciously assassinated and Escobar goes on the run.
Ambitiously attempting to evoke memories of “The Godfather,” writer/director Andrea di Stefano has obviously fictionalized real events to achieve suspense. While Josh Hutcherson (“The Hunger Games”) remains expressionless and opaque, the film’s greatest asset is the wily, ruthless menace conveyed by Benicio del Toro, who won an Oscar for “Traffic.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Escobar: Paradise Lost” is a disturbing, yet unfocused 5, dissolving into multi-lingual melodrama.
