SnoopyStyle In 1991, Pablo Escobar (Benicio Del Toro) is preparing to surrender and go to jail. He gathers his supporters including Nick Brady (Josh Hutcherson). He has a special assassination mission for Nick. A few years earlier, Canadian brothers Nick and Dylan Brady are building a surfing camp on the coast. Nick falls for local Maria. After being extorted by local thugs, Nick gets help from Maria's uncle political leader Pablo Escobar.Benicio Del Toro plays Escobar as a charming family man with a monster underneath. He shows that he would be great to play Escobar in a biopic, just not a biopic about a short Canadian surfer. Josh Hutcherson still looks like a kid. His character is hopelessly naive and white toast. His relationship with Maria has limited heat. I can't even tell how long they've been together. His child-like smile doesn't help. He's a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It's a sideway method of taking on the iconic drug lord's story. The last act does have some thrills but they are always undercut by Hutcherson's shock and Canadian nice-boy sensibilities.

Cinefill1 -Escobar: Paradise Lost (also known as Paradise Lost) is a 2014 romantic thriller film, written and directed by Andrea Di Stefano.[ It is the directorial debut of Di Stefano. The film chronicles the life of a surfer who falls in love while working with his brother in Colombia and finds out that the girl's uncle is Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. -Of the storyline, Di Stefano claimed "the idea came from three sentences (I) heard from a police officer about a real-life young Italian fellow who went to Colombia to meet his brother, somehow became close to the Escobar family, and then got in trouble.--Critical response:-Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 52% approval rating, based on reviews from 41 critics, with an average score of 5.8/10 ,Metacritic gives the film a score of 56 out of 100, based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". -At the Telluride Film Festival, Escobar: Paradise Lost received a generally positive critical response. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Todd McCarthy called the film "an absorbing and suspenseful drug trade drama" along with citing that "del Toro's presence, like Brando's in The Godfather, looms over everything that happens here". McCarthy also stated that "Di Stefano shows some real directorial chops in the film's central and impressively extended action-suspense sequence". However, "the romantic interplay between Nick and Maria gets a bit tiresome and redundant due to the fact that they're both so extremely nice and agreeable; Nick's naivete and goody two-shoes Canadianism (he stresses that he's not a Yank) also prove wearisome". -Writing for Indiewire, Eric Kohn gave the film a B and praised the performances of del Toro and Hutcherson writing that del Toro "turns Escobar into a subdued terror whose ability to order murders with ease provides the movie with its chief source of dread". While Hutcherson "imbues the character with a believability that transcends the script's limitations". However, Kohn also criticised the film as it "fails to develop the rest of its characters as well as it does for its two central men. The screenplay is similarly marred by formula, lagging whenever it hits certain high melodramatic notes, and reminding us of the stakes in play with mopey, dime-store gravitas".

gfilartiga I found this film quite disappointing. Pablo Escobar's life provides the opportunity to tell a diverse number and types of stories. Yet this film uses him as they could have used a fictional character. One created by the Author. I have read and watched countless books, newspapers, documentaries, TV series and films made about Pablo Escobar. The character in this movie doesn't approach the surface of who he was. I question why even use the Escobar character and not just create a Drug Lord somewhere in Latin America? The portrait of the Escobar depicted in this film is very different from reality. Who he was, what drove him, what infuriated him, what he was afraid of. The only thing they got right is that he did care very much for his family. This film could have been so much more.

Paul Allaer As "Escobar: Paradise Lost" (2014 release from France and Spain; 120 min.) opens, we are told it is "Medellin, Colombia, June, 1991". We see Escobar making a phone call to his old mother, informing her he is going to prison tomorrow. On this last night of freedom, Escobar gathers his closest aides, including Nick, and everyone is assigned a particular task to hide the economic wealth of the cartel. Escobar tells Nick that he needs to kill his guide after the loot has been hidden, much to Nick's horror. We then go back "A Few Years Earlier", where we see Nick, a Canadian surfer, and his brother Dylan building a surf camp. Nick meets Maria, a beautiful local girl, whom we later learn is related to Escobar (he is Maria's uncle). At this point we're 15 min. into the movie. Will Nick kill the guide? What becomes of Nick and Maria? To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: first, the movie's main events surrounding Escobar are based on facts, including the historical surrender in 1991. But I have my doubts that the parallel story lines involving Nick and Maria really happened. If they had, we probably would have b told at the beginning that this movie was "based on true events" or something like it. Not that this diminishes the enjoyment of the film, as somehow this mix of facts and fiction works great. The relationship between Nick and Maria is fun to watch, in particular as Claudia Traisac (playing Maria) is nothing short of a glowing presence on the big screen, what a delight! Benicio del Toro, portraying Escobar, is a heavy-weight and overpowers everyone, similar to what Markon Brando did in The Godfather. Josh Hutcherson is okay as Nick. His best moment in the movie is when he and Maria attend a birthday party for Escobar, and along the way Nick comes to the realization of what is really going on and what Escobar does. Priceless! The last 30 min. of the movie provide a nice pay-off and will have you on the edge of your seat."Escobar: Paradise Lost" showed up without any pre-release fanfare or hype at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati last weekend, and I finally had a chance to check it out. The matinée screening where I saw this at was attended okay but not great. I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie, which turned out to be much better than what I had expected. If you are in the mood for a tough-as-nails crime drama with several top-notch performances, I encourage you to seek this out, be it in the theater, on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. "Escobar: Paradise Lost" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!