Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal 

The exploits of the notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar.

Stars:

Andrés Parra, Marcela Vargas, Joavany Alvarez

3 wins.

Cast

Series cast summary:
Andrés Parra	...	Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria 115 episodes, 2012
Marcela Vargas	...	Mireya 113 episodes, 2012
Joavany Alvarez	...	Pedro Motoa 105 episodes, 2012
Vicky Hernández	...	Doña Enelia de Escobar 82 episodes, 2012
Cecilia Navia	...	Paty de Escobar 82 episodes, 2012
Christian Tappan	...	Gonzalo Gaviria 82 episodes, 2012

Storyline

The exploits of the notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar.

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Plot Keywords:

telenovela | suitcase of money | names changed | m 19 | attack on fort | 

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Taglines:

Quien no conoce su historia está condenado a repetirla

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Genres:

Biography | Crime | Drama | History | Thriller

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Certificate:

TV-MA

Details

Official Sites:

Caracol Televisión [Colombia] Official Facebook

Country:

Colombia

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

28 May 2012 (Colombia)

Also Known As:

Escobar, baronul raului

Filming Locations:

Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia

Company Credits

Production Co:

Canokamedia, Producciones en Mente y Plural, Caracol Televisión

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

16:9 HD

Did You Know?

Trivia

The series was created by Camilo Cano and Juana Uribe who are both closely tied with Pablo Escobar. Camilo Cano is the son of Guillermo Cano who was the publisher of newspaper El Espectador and who was murdered by Escobar in December 1986. Juana Uribe is the vice president of Caracol TV and also the series' producer. She is the daughter to Maruja Pachón who was kidnapped by Pablo Escobar on 7 November 1990 and later released. Juana is also the niece to presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán who was killed by Escobar in August 1989.

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Goofs

Several of the rifles used by the cartel members on this series are M4 carbines (the current version of the US military m16 rifle). The M4 carbine was not in use until 1994, the year after Escobar's death.

Furthemore, many of the military and cartel's guns in this series feature "picatinny rails" to mount accessories, such as flashlights, scopes, and laser aiming devices. This rail system was also not adopted until the mid '90s, and even then, not in full military use until years after Escobar was killed.

Finally, in several scenes the weapons are equipped with modern lighting systems and "quad rails," which were not developed until long after this story takes place.

The M16a1 and a2 rifles shown being used by the militants and police in this series are interspersed with the weapons mentioned above. Likely, the producers relied on whatever props they could acquire, and importing older, a1/a2 weapons was very cost prohibitive.

User Reviews

Informative but not thrilling - and too long

Narcos made me curious about the 'real' Escobar story. So I sat through all 74 episodes of El Patrón del Mal. From a Colombian perspective, the production might be acceptable and the story-line fascinating. Now I'm just a movie watcher so without disrespect to the victims I review this series as such.

1. It's far too long. Too much time is spent on victims and their funerals, on journalists, on mourning family members. (My mam recently died so the impact of a death is still fresh in my memory. How unbearable it may be, filming crying people doesn't make for a good TV-show. No disrespect intended.)

2. Did the journalists help writing the script? They emphasize their own role in a way that's hard to believe. Their meetings are lengthy, boring and hold up the progression of the story-line. Even their home situations and discussions at the dinner table are shown... Admittedly at some point I started skipping the journalists conversations and I never missed a bit of information because of it.

3. Many, many dialogues are simply illustrations of what we already know. People worrying, politicians worrying, journalists worrying, possible victims worrying, before a murder, after a murder, yes, at a certain point we got that the situation was bad. Some of these sidelines, like zooming in on murdered politicians and their families, consume up entire episodes.

4. The music is badly chosen and sounds like some free stock sound-samples used over and over again. CGI (explosions) aren't state-of-the-art either, to put it friendly, but somehow I find that easy to forgive.

5. Location indicators: before seeing a scene, we're informed where it takes place by a panorama picture of the city. The same picture of Medellin (or Bogota) with the same clouds in the air, over and over again. OK, sometimes the night shot is used.

6. What really puzzled me was the casting of Escobar. Looking at this series, Escobar was a fatso, walking around like a Teletubby, so insecure that he never looks anybody in the eye when speaking. His voice has a robotic, mechanic intonation, like he's summing up his lines. It's amazing that such a loser could ever become the worlds biggest drug-lord.

Escobar's character doesn't fit the impression that I got from real footage and pictures: a charismatic guy, gesturing, leading the pack, looking straight in the camera.

But then, everyone says this series is quite authentic so I'll have to accept this disturbing fact as being close to the truth. It spoiled my watching experience to some extent. If they only could have given Escobar some charisma.

I don't regret watching all episodes though. The series was not only informative about Escobar but also gives a peek into a world where lives don't count.