Every time I watch "Drug Lord", I always remember a sentence from the legendary script "Peach Blossom Fan":
"Seeing him getting up from the Zhu Building, seeing him banqueting guests, seeing his building collapsed!"
From the Escobar of the Medellin Group in the first two seasons to the Big Four of the Cali Group in the third season, these once-awe-inspiring drug lords have experienced everything from "starting Zhulou" to "banquet guests" to "The building collapsed" in the three stages of life.
The life trajectory of Mexico’s “godfather of drugs” Miguel Felix Gallardo in the latest season is no different.
"Drug Lords: Mexico" is no longer a follow-up to the plots of the first three seasons. The story timeline goes back to the mid-1980s, and the location was moved from Colombia to Mexico. The protagonist of the first three seasons, DEA agent Penner, did not appear in this season. However, this did not affect the overall quality of this season. The fourth season still maintained the film quality and unique magical realism of "Drug Lord".
As a crime drama with a biographical nature, the most successful part of "Narcotics" lies in the characterization of the characters, the brutal and arrogant Escobar, the shrewd and sophisticated Gilberto, the sinister and vicious Miguel, and the smiling Pache .
Each gangster-level drug lord who has appeared in the past three seasons has different personality characteristics and ways of doing things, and when portraying these characters in the series, they not only blindly show their greed and evil, but also endow them through family affection, love, and friendship. The human side.
"Drug Lords: Mexico" continues the three-dimensional characterization of the previous three seasons. Gallardo is different from the leaders of Medellin or Cali. If you compare Escobar to a fierce tiger, and the Big Four of Cali to a jackal in human skin, then Gallardo is Cunning and alert fox.
Born in Sinaloa, a drug-affected area, and at the same time as a police officer, Gallardo understands both the unspoken rules of the system and the rules of the gang. Therefore, in the play, whether facing high-ranking government officials or gangsters, he can always find the other side's interests and needs and reach cooperation with them.
As the godfather of the gang, Gallardo can lower his stance for profit in the negotiations with the big four of Escobar and Cali; in the face of the blackmail and irony of politicians and officials, he can repeatedly retreat, but once he finds out The other party loses the value of use, and he can retaliate ruthlessly.
Gallardo is like a calm and decisive gambler, cautious and bold, tolerant and cunning. This personality trait, coupled with excellent social skills and flexible business acumen, makes him bet right in almost every gambling.
The fourth season used five episodes of plot to tell how Gallardo built his drug kingdom step by step.
First, improve the variety. With the help of hemp expert Rafa Quintao, a new product of seedless hemp was cultivated.
The second step is to transfer the production base. Taking advantage of the government army's anti-drug attack in his hometown of Sinaloa, Gallardo decisively went to Guadalajara, where the forces were intertwined, to find partners and open up new plantations.
The third step is to seek political protection. Cooperating with corrupt officials of the Mexican Federal Security Agency and making the organization his umbrella.
The fourth step is to form an alliance of interests. Lobbying other drug cartels in Mexico and uniting them to form a drug alliance with the same pricing, transportation, and distribution. Its organizational form can be called the OPEC in the cannabis industry.
The fifth step is to upgrade products and expand business. Gallardo discovered the huge profits of cocaine and proposed to cooperate with his Colombian counterparts to help them smuggle cocaine by using the advantages of mastering the transportation channels on the U.S.-Mexico border.
At this point, Gallardo has embarked on the pinnacle of life.
However, for the drug lords. When their career reaches its peak, it also means that they will become targets for the government and DEA.
The increase in wealth and the increase in power have reduced the sense of security of drug lords.
At this time, they either choose to "wash out" like the Kali Group, or like Escobar, they can conceal their deep anxiety and fear by grabbing more wealth and greater power.
But it turns out that both methods have failed. The Big Four of Cali went to jail, while Escobar went into madness.
Gallardo took into account two ways. On the one hand, he constantly tried to squeeze into the upper class and seek a higher-level umbrella; on the other hand, he strengthened his position in the gang by expanding the scale of his business.
Therefore, Gallardo switched from a cannabis producer to a cocaine "porter". In addition to the inherent desire of human nature, it is more important to fill in the lack of security deep in his heart. In the fifth episode, Gallardo has revealed this deep-seated motive in the negotiation with Escobar.
In general, Miguel Gallardo in "Drug Lords: Mexico" has impeccable textual modeling. It is a bit regretful that the lead actor Diego Luna has shown Gallardo's caution and tolerance. , Cunning, but when there is a need for emotional outbursts, this gentle actor always lacks such a cruel and cruel aura. Especially in the fifth episode of his opponent scene with Escobar, his aura was completely suppressed by the opponent.
In addition to Miguel Gallardo, another protagonist in this season, DEA agent Kiki Camarena, also has a good background. It is he who organized the operation to destroy the Gallardo cannabis plantation, and Kama Reina was also retaliated by drug dealers and beaten to death after being kidnapped.
Camarena’s sacrifice largely prompted the US government’s anti-drug policy to shift from modest to strict. Since then, they will resort to "violence against violence" to retaliate against drug dealers who murdered DEA agents, and secretly provoke conflicts between major drug trafficking groups and let them kill each other. (For the relevant plot, please refer to the first two seasons of "Drug Lord" and the movie "Border Killer")
Kiki Camarena in the play is starred by Michael Pena. This Mexican-born actor often plays supporting roles in Hollywood blockbusters. The most impressive of these is the chatter in the "Ant-Man" series. .
At first, when I was watching the stills, I was worried about whether this actor with his own laughter could take up such a serious role. But facts have proved that this worry is completely unnecessary. The serious Pena portrays the image of an honest and brave lone police detective very well.
In the play, Camarena is fighting not only the drug cartel, but also the corrupt and bureaucratic Mexican government, which is where the “magical reality” of the play lies.
In Mexico, a drug dealer can walk into the police station with a box of money and buy the police as a thug; in Mexico, the national security intelligence agency can cooperate with drug cartels to grow marijuana; in Mexico, drug lords just want to do it, You can buy government personnel at all levels, including members of Congress, and street patrols. If you want the police to fight for drugs, they will only evade each other.
To this day, drugs are still a stubborn disease in Mexican society.
It sounds magical, but this is the reality in Mexico. The series attributed the problem of drug ravages in Mexico to corruption and bureaucracy. However, behind these appearances, there are more complicated political, economic, and diplomatic issues involved.
Mexico is close to the world’s largest drug consumption market, and Americans’ constant demand for drugs such as marijuana and cocaine is the root cause of the Mexican drug problem.
Especially after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the early 1990s, cheap agricultural products from the United States flooded the Mexican market, causing a large number of bottom farmers to go bankrupt. In order to survive, the bankrupt farmers had to take risks and cooperate with drug dealers to plant cannabis or poppies.
For these low-level farmers, the drug lords are their food and clothing parents. If the Mexican government completely prohibits drugs, the drug cartel will take up arms to resist, and the bottom civilians relying on the drug cartel will use votes to oust the ruling party. Moreover, after 30 years of development, the forces of Mexican drug cartels have already penetrated into the various administrative systems of the government.
For the Mexican government, the war on drugs is a powerless and unintentional war, but this battle must be fought. On the one hand, there are still idealists in the country who insist on eradicating this chronic disease of society, and more importantly, from neighbors. The country’s political and diplomatic pressures forced them to participate in the never-ending war on drugs.
For this reason, in Mexico, the war on drugs is doomed to never end from the moment it begins.
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