Thriller

Romance

Escobar: Paradise Lost

Chapter 2 Orange Studio

Pathé

Roxbury

Paradise Lost Film

Nexus Factory

Jouror Développement

uMedia

uFund

France

Spain

Belgium

Español

English

Benicio del Toro

Josh Hutcherson

Brady Corbet

Claudia Traisac

Carlos Bardem

Ana Girardot

Tenoch Huerta Mejía

Laura Londoño

Frank Spano

Micke Moreno

Elmis Castillo

Aaron Zebede

Andrea Di Stefano

Moritz Borman

Miguel Ángel Faura

Luis Pacheco

Isaac Torrás

Gilles Waterkeyn

Adrian Politowski

Nadia Khamlichi

Avril Carpentier

Thi Thanh Tu Nguyen

Agathe Dupuis

Dimitri Rassam

Luis David Sansans

David Brenner

Maryline Monthieux

Pascale Béraud

Yiniva Cardenas

Antonia Dauphin

Carlos Conti

Camila Arocha

Marylin Fitoussi

Thibaut Josserand

Sylvain Lasseur

Christine Seznec

Gadou Naudin

Frédéric Le Louêt

Alexandre Fleurant

Sébastien Marquilly

Vincent Arnardi

Julien Perez

Odile Beraud

Michel Denis

Thomas Duval

Dominique Fiore

Ronald Grauer

Frédéric Vallet

Guillermo Rosas

Denis Bedlow

Annette Kudrak

Del Spiva

Maggie Perlado

Max Richter

Bernardo Kenny

Benicio del Toro is a better Pablo Escobar than Javier Bardem, the same way Escobar: Paradise Lost is a better film about the drug lord than Loving Pablo – but the latter only marginally. Unlike Bardem, del Toro speaks Spanish throughout, except when addressing Nick Brady (Josh Hutcherson), which makes sense because Nick is Canadian. Moreover, most of the actors in Paradise Lost are Latino or Spanish, and their characters accordingly speak the language of Cervantes.

The problem here is that the movie plays like a remake of the Last King of Scotland – and is just about as faithful to reality. Nick has gone surfing in Colombia, where he meets María (Claudia Traissac), and it's love at first sight. Little does Nick know that María is Escobar’s ‘almost-like-a-daughter-to-me’ niece. Yada yada yada the young, wide-eyed foreigner is seduced by the superficially affable and charismatic sociopath, only to discover sooner rather than later that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Now, del Toro can conjure affability, charisma, and sociopathy at the drop of hat, and he doesn't need to be in every scene to steal the movie; conversely, he couldn't save the film even if he did appear in every scene, because the story isn't about him, so Escobar doesn't so much inhabit the movie as he hovers over it, like a bird of prey.

As for Nick and María, they are as make-believe as James McAvoy’s character in the Last King of Scotland. We don’t care what happens to them anymore than writer/director Andrea Di Stefano cares about what happens to Escobar, who literally and figuratively gets away with murder.

ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST - Official Trailer - Now playing!

Best Movies

Escobar: Paradise Lost

Cast & Crew

Videos

Cast

Benicio del Toro

Josh Hutcherson

Brady Corbet

Claudia Traisac

Carlos Bardem

Ana Girardot

Tenoch Huerta Mejía

Laura Londoño

Frank Spano

Micke Moreno

Box office

More Like This

Double Indemnity

Blow-Up

Arlington Road

Point Break

Lonely Hearts

Dead in 3 days

Street Kings

November