The Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco made Miami unsafe in the 1970s and 1980s. In the crime series Griselda gives Modern Familyactress Sofía Vergara portrays the mafia boss, who takes her place like a wrecking ball in the male stronghold of the Latin American drug trade.
To play Griselda, Sofía Vergara has undergone a major transformation. With a fake nose and different wigs, she tries to be as unrecognizable as possible, so that the viewer only sees Griselda Blanco. That doesn’t necessarily do the crime drama (available on Netflix) any good. It even distracts from everything going on in the Miami underworld.
It’s almost impossible to ignore Vergara’s nose. Her way of acting is complicated. She doesn’t know whether to play the gangster as an innocent woman trying to survive in the tough underworld of Miami, or Griselda as a brutal criminal who knows exactly what she is doing. With only six episodes, Griselda’s rise is told at a rapid pace and there is little room for character growth. One moment she is trying with pain and effort to sell a kilo of cocaine. In the next episode, she smuggles kilos of cocaine into the country and lays the foundation for her drug empire.
Miami is the city of danger
The characters surrounding Griselda therefore remain relatively flat. Dario (Alberto Guerra) is little more than the handsome bodyguard, Arturo (Christian Tappan) shows up when she needs a reliable friend and rival Papo (Maximiliano Hernández) has the sole task of thwarting her.
The storyline of analyst and translator June Hawkins (Juliana Aidén Martinez), on the other hand, is a lot better. The single mother works for the police and wants to contribute, but is constantly underestimated by her male colleagues. To earn respect, she has to work hard, but this is at the expense of her son and she struggles with that very much.
The series is also a feast for the eyes. Old Miami is not a city full of pastel colors and neon lights, as in, for example Miami Vice, but a grim world where everyone is in danger. It’s a pity that the action scenes are quite short and the assassinations and thefts remain out of the picture. This is why Griselda not the new one Narcos (about the life of Pablo Escobar, ed.), which could have been the crime series.
Want to read more of our reviews? Search for a series below or browse the articles.
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss anything from the stars.