Escobar: Paradise Lost
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Escobar: Paradise Lost |
| Original title | Escobar: Paradise Lost |
| Country of production | France , Spain , Belgium , Panama |
| original language |
English Spanish |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Andrea Di Stefano |
| script | Andrea Di Stefano |
| production | Dimitri Rassam |
| music | Max Richter |
| camera | Luis David Sansans |
| cut |
David Brenner , Maryline Monthieux |
| occupation | |
| |
Escobar: Paradise Lost is a French - Spanish - Belgian - Panamanian film drama from the year 2014 . The mostly fictional story takes place in the environment of the drug lord Pablo Escobar .
action
Pablo Escobar is sitting in a dark bedroom and is told it's on. He then calls his mother and prays with her to protect his family.
Cut:
Nick sits in a pew and prays while Mary enters the church smiling and walks over to him.
Cut:
Nick and Maria are packing. When the doorbell rings vehemently, they hide their luggage. It's Pablo's men who are supposed to bring Nick to Pablo. Before he goes with them, he tells Maria that she should tell his brother that he should postpone the flights for a day and that she shouldn't be afraid for him.
Nick is blindfolded and taken to an unknown place where Pablo is waiting for him among his men. As the drug war has come to a head, he meets up with his closest confidantes, including Nick, to tell them that he will face the authorities the next day and that he now needs their help. They are supposed to hide his economic power / his treasures and he gives each of his men a job.
Nick is supposed to drive to Ituango, wait in front of the church for a contact who in turn is supposed to lead him to a cave. He should hide his cargo, part of the family's treasures, in it. After that, the entrance to the cave is said to be brought down by an explosive charge. On the way back, Nick is supposed to shoot the contact with the gun Pablo gives him. Back in Ituango, he should call Pablo from a certain restaurant and confirm the order. Nick is unsure as he has never done anything like this, but Pablo assures him that Nick is like a son to him and that everyone must make sacrifices. Nick sees no other way than to accept the assignment.
One year ago:
The young Canadian Nick goes to Colombia with his brother Dylan and his wife Anne. They would like to open a surf camp together on a heavenly beach. Nick wants to work there as a surf instructor.
When they want to fetch building materials in the neighboring village, he meets Maria when he asks her if her truck is for rent. In return, he offers her surfing lessons, which she answers with a roll of her eyes and wants to lend you the truck for free.
The next morning, Nick and his family are woken up by a couple of strong Colombians who are entering their already built facades. The Colombians introduce themselves as the Roldano brothers and demand money from you to allow them to set up their camp here. Dylan agrees with the armed presence of the village mafia, but when they leave, he wants to ignore them.
In the evening, Nick brings flowers to Maria as thanks for the loaned truck and flirts with her. After a moment's hesitation, she lets him in and they talk for a long time on their porch. Maria explains that she does charity work for the poor in the clinic and works for her uncle, Pablo Escobar. She believes that much more needs to be done for the poor and that Nick and his family should do their part too. Nick tells her that his brother can no longer surf but has always dreamed of living here in Colombia and he just wants him to be happy again. When Nick said goodbye, he realized with a grin that it was a long way back in the dark, whereupon she replied with a smile that he was a big boy and could do it. When he wakes up in his hammock the next morning, Maria is on the beach and they are kissing. They fall in love and become a couple.
When the clinic opens, Nick sees Maria's family for the first time and how much the people cheer Pablo Escobar and his promises. Maria then tells him that her family and especially her uncle want to get to know him and invites him. For this, Nick wants to get himself appropriate clothing and is taken from the beach by the thugs in a small clothing store. Since they have not paid any money, they set a dog on him, which injures his arm.
During a visit to Pablo Escobar's luxurious country estate on his birthday, he met Maria's family. He learns that her uncle's wealth is based on the cocaine trade, although she dismisses this fact as a tradition, as he only exports a natural product and gives most of his earnings to the poor.
At night Pablo visits Nick in his guest room and talks to him because Maria has raved about Nick to him. Pablo tells him that Maria is like a daughter to him and he is happy that she has found true love. Nick tells him about his brother's surf camp. When Pablo asks him about the bite wounds on his arm, he tells him about the dog of the thugs from the village.
For Pablo, Nick quickly becomes part of the family and he treats him like a son. When Nick proposes to Maria with the whole family present, Pablo wishes Maria would soon become pregnant by Nick. Dylan and Anne stand apart here. Later, Dylan asks Nick if he had told Pablo anything about the Roldano brothers, as they were brutally murdered by Escobar's men. Nick is skeptical and doesn't believe Dylan. At the same time he informs him that he will be working at Pablo's Hacienda Nápoles in the future.
He now lives there with Maria and deals with Pablo's son, among other things. One Sunday, when he is going to get the pony for Pablo's son, he sees Pablo's men cleansing themselves of the blood on their bodies. Since he looks very disturbed, one of the men calls Pablo and tells him that they have a problem. Pablo then talks to Nick and tells him that he has to trust everyone who is close to him and that he always has to tell him if he notices something strange.
Nick feels increasingly uncomfortable, can no longer sleep properly and has nightmares about the murder of the Roldano brothers. He then asks Maria to go back to the beach with him, who refuses because she knows nothing about the violence and does not want to admit it. She is very attached to her family and Nick is now part of it and everyone loves him. This can also be seen in the fact that he, as Maria's fiancé, should be on the family portrait. Since he loves Maria very much and can no longer imagine a life without her, he stays at the hacienda.
The clashes between Escobar and the law enforcement authorities in Colombia are getting worse as the Colombian government wants to extradite Pablo to the United States. The whole hacienda is evacuated and Nick and Maria seek shelter with his brother Dylan temporarily. When he finds the weapon that Pablo gave Nick to defend himself, he sends the two of them away because he doesn't want anything to do with the whole thing.
They are being taken to one of Pablo's apartments when the Colombian news announces that Colombian Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was allegedly murdered at the instigation of Pablo Escobar. It is also reported that this is bringing Colombia to the brink of civil war and violence in the country is rampant. Pablo, who is currently on the run, is referred to as Public Enemy No. 1. Maria and Nick live hidden with family members of the Escobars and are under constant surveillance and are visited irregularly by Pablo.
Nick and Pablo talk about Nick's brother who wants to go back to Canada with his pregnant wife and child. Allegedly because Anne is homesick, but it is obvious that it is the current situation in the country that worries her. Pablo asks if his brother is in trouble again on the beach and tells him, in response to Nick's no, that the Roldano brothers only had to die because of his intervention and that he is as much to blame as Pablo himself.
Now that Maria also realizes how dangerous the situation and her uncle are, she and Nick secretly forge escape plans with his brother and his family and have them get tickets for flights to Canada for a few days later.
As Nick and Maria are packing, the doorbell rings vehemently. It is Pablo's men who bring him to him and he gets his assignment from Pablo.
Nick goes to Ituango. However, the contact man, a farmer who broke his foot, sends his 15-year-old son Martin. Nick asks Pablo on the restaurant phone if he should still finish the job. This answers him that he should call when the matter is over and hangs up.
While unloading the boxes, he learns that Martin is already married and has a son. The doubts about the assignment in Nick are growing and so after unloading the boxes and blowing up the cave he decides that he cannot carry out the murder assignment. He tries to convince Martin that he and his family must flee immediately. As Nick becomes increasingly desperate and he ends up threatening him with a gun, Martin finally believes him.
On the way to Martin's house, Nick sees Escobar's killer vehicle. He gives Martin 5 minutes to get his family and in the meantime calls Maria to let her know that he is probably in trouble. Maria tells him tearfully that they are all dead and that she was so afraid that he was dead too. Nick tells Maria that he believes Pablo wants to kill him and that she must flee immediately. She believes him and they arrange to meet for the next morning at the church across from the Canadian embassy in Bogota.
Nick then calls Pablo. When one of his men answers the phone and makes a mistake, Nick is certain that Pablo's plan should have killed him too. He demands to speak to Pablo and tells him that he knows he wants to have him killed. Pablo replies that sometimes you have to leave friends behind and unfortunately he is one of those friends.
One of Escobar's killers has in the meantime killed Martin's family and is now also shooting Martin. Nick manages to escape and hides under a blanket in the back seat of his car, which the killers have already searched.
Meanwhile, Pablo Escobar says goodbye to his family and tells his son that he is now the man. When these are then brought to safety, he unscrupulously gives further orders to kill various men who are loyal to him.
In Ituango, the local police support Escobar's search for Nick and cordon off the city. When it gets dark, however, he manages to escape from the city in a police car after he has handcuffed the policeman in the back seat. In order to get the population to help, it is presented on the radio news as if Nick had murdered Martin's family including his baby.
On his escape, Nick stops at an open restaurant on a country road because he wants to warn his brother by phone. When he called, however, he learned that his brother was dead and had to listen to his pregnant wife and their baby being killed.
Escobar is meanwhile brought in a limousine through a crowd to a helicopter. The crowd cheers for him and doesn't understand why he wants to face the authorities.
Nick is still sitting on the phone in shock when he notices just in time the killers who chased him and have now arrived at the restaurant. Out of anger and pain over the death of his brother and his family, he kills both persecutors, but is shot in the process.
In shock, he runs to the car of the two killers to drive to Bogota. As he is about to drive off, the phone rings and Pablo asks at the other end of the line what about Nick now. He replies that he is still alive and shoots the phone.
Pablo is asked by the Father to go now that he has made an agreement. He still blesses him and after Pablo has asked him to put in a good word to God for him, he runs through the open gate into prison.
Nick has meanwhile arrived at church seriously injured. He is sitting in one of the pews and praying. When Maria arrives at his place, she sees how badly he is injured and breaks down in tears. She runs into the street and called for help across the street to the Canadian embassy. When she discovers Escobar's people's car that was parked in front of the embassy and is now moving towards the church, she calls to Nick to run away. Since this is no longer possible due to his severe injuries and the loss of blood, Nick now realizes that he, too, cannot escape Escobar's killers.
Review:
Nick and Dylan walk heavily loaded through the Colombian forest and land on an almost paradisiacal beach. Here they both know that they want to start over and embrace each other stormily.
reception
Financial success
During its premiere in France, the film grossed $ 601,554 on the first weekend. The launch in Spain raised $ 620,845 on the first weekend and in the United Arab Emirates it raised $ 79,637. So far, the film has earned $ 3,562,536 in the overseas markets in which the film was released. Domestically, the film grossed $ 195,792 in the first two weeks.
criticism
Overall, the film is rated as average. On the Rotten Tomatos rating platform , the film was rated with an average critical rating of 55%, while users rated the film with only 49%. At Metacritic , based on 20 reviews, the film got a rating of 56 out of 100 possible points. The users rated the film a little better with 6.6 out of 10 points. In The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy awarded with 80 out of 100 points one of the best reviews, he described the film as "impressive debut".
“[…] Less biographically colored than much more committed to the thriller genre, the film tells how the young“ gringo ”develops growing skepticism towards the charismatic Escobar and gets into a moral dilemma. An exciting, well-staged directorial debut, which however has more interest in the emotional development of its protagonist than in the reality of the Colombian drug war. "
“[...] The box construction of the film seems a bit clumsy, which makes this moment of tension a bracket for a long flashback sequence. If it weren't for a situation in which all illusion is lost at the beginning, the story of the "paradise lost" might have become even more haunting. But especially in his moving second half, staged with harsh intensity, Escobar runs into great tension, also thanks to Josh Hutcherson, who lets his character become a popular figure despite being blinded. [...] "
See also
Web links
- Escobar: Paradise Lost in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Escobar: Paradise Lost at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Escobar: Paradise Lost at Metacritic (English)
- Criticism from Spiegel ONLINE
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Escobar: Paradise Lost . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2015 (PDF; test number: 152 272 K).
- ↑ Escobar: Paradise Lost (2015) - Box Office Mojo. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Escobar: Paradise Lost (2015) - International Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Escobar: Paradise Lost (2015) - International Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Escobar: Paradise Lost (2015). Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Escobar: Paradise Lost. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
- ↑ 'Escobar: Paradise Lost': Telluride Review. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
- ↑ https://www.filmdienst.de/film/details/546107/escobar-paradise-lost#%C3%BCberblick
- ↑ https://www.epd-film.de/filmkritiken/escobar-paradise-lost