A young Canadian called Nick goes on vacation in Colombia in 1991 and falls in love with a local girl called Maria . As the relationship deepens there might be a problem in that Maria's father is Pablo Escobar , the world's cocaine kingpin and very soon Escobar wants to involve Nick in his business
This came and went on the international market with little comment . It does have a very good premise at the heart of its story and the trailers give the impression of an action thriller involving a man stuck between a rock and a hard place . However there is something missing and a few faults that stops this movie from being a great one and merely ends up as a mildly engaging
I can understand one problem is hindsight . By this I mean if you've been following international news for many years you'd have heard of Pablo Escobar and instantly know who he is in 2015 , It probably wouldn't be the case in 1991 where the story begins and watching Nick become caught up in gangsterism , narco-terrorism and murder means he comes across as painfully naive in hindsight . No one would confess to shaking hands with Hitler and praise him as a nice guy and a great politician but this is exactly what countless people did with him prior to his invasion of Poland in September 1939 . The problem with history is that we tend to view it from the current present day stand point and forget what things were like at the time . Perhaps the film would have worked better if it was brought out a few years earlier ?
This is a shame when it concentrates on the internal dilemmas Nick finds himself in it is rather good especially he realises there's no way he's going to be allowed to leave Colombia alive if he decides to walk away from the family business and the film works best when it pursues this plot strand but spends too much unnecessary time on the Nick / Maria relationship . Unfortunately the film is never as compelling or as consistent as it could have been
This came and went on the international market with little comment . It does have a very good premise at the heart of its story and the trailers give the impression of an action thriller involving a man stuck between a rock and a hard place . However there is something missing and a few faults that stops this movie from being a great one and merely ends up as a mildly engaging
I can understand one problem is hindsight . By this I mean if you've been following international news for many years you'd have heard of Pablo Escobar and instantly know who he is in 2015 , It probably wouldn't be the case in 1991 where the story begins and watching Nick become caught up in gangsterism , narco-terrorism and murder means he comes across as painfully naive in hindsight . No one would confess to shaking hands with Hitler and praise him as a nice guy and a great politician but this is exactly what countless people did with him prior to his invasion of Poland in September 1939 . The problem with history is that we tend to view it from the current present day stand point and forget what things were like at the time . Perhaps the film would have worked better if it was brought out a few years earlier ?
This is a shame when it concentrates on the internal dilemmas Nick finds himself in it is rather good especially he realises there's no way he's going to be allowed to leave Colombia alive if he decides to walk away from the family business and the film works best when it pursues this plot strand but spends too much unnecessary time on the Nick / Maria relationship . Unfortunately the film is never as compelling or as consistent as it could have been