Sunday, September 13, 2015

El Señor de los Cielos Review

Hey there, this be Sam. This post is going to focus on the ridiculously fucking long telenovela “El Señor de los Cielos”. This isn’t going to be a review so much as an examination of the script’s strength. Normally in a review, especially for film and TV, I’ll focus on all the elements of what makes a show or film work, but in this case I’m solely going to focus on scriptwriting and storytelling. I’m not going to bother focusing on the acting (which is hilariously broad, though it has its moments), the cinematography (which is aggressively mediocre), none of that shit. Just the script.

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El Señor de los Cielos is easily one of the worst American-produced TV series I’ve ever had the displeasure to watch. This isn’t a consensus opinion: it’s a show that’s largely regarded as a good soap opera with fairly strong acting, an engaging storyline, and distinctive characters. Although I’d like to argue the terms “good” and “soap opera” don’t belong in the same sentence, I can also partially see why people would like this, at least from an American standpoint. It’s very reminiscent of shows and films such as Breaking Bad, CSI, Scarface, The Wire. Which is sensible because it’s American-produced. And given the mind-blowing amount of episodes produced in such a short amount of time, it’s evidently very popular. I don’t want to begrudge nor insult anybody who likes this show. Even if I personally dislike something, that doesn’t inherently mean that you should do the same if you have half a brain. If you like something like El Señor de los Cielos, that’s completely fine. This analysis, after all, isn’t pointing out what’s wrong with the fans, it’s about what’s wrong with the show.

It’s really hard to know where to start with El Señor de los Cielos, because other than really good costume design and fairly slick editing, it does basically everything wrong. There is a plot, and there are characters, and there are environments / locations, but never do the three elements tie together in a way that is entirely natural or enjoyable. The essential storyline involves seemingly powerful drug trafficker Aurelio Casillas and his daily adventures, most of which involve trying to not get his ass handed to him by the DEA, rival gangs, or anybody else flying toward him in all directions.



Aurelio Casillas is a bad protagonist; he is, in fact, so incredibly poorly-written that it’s impossible to get a bead on what type of protagonist he is. He at first to be an egotistical drug lord who’s more than willing to torture, kill, steal, or one-up anybody who stands in his way; he is also a humble family man, but not too humble, because it’s proven he has practically the entire female cast riding his nuts and he’s more than happy to oblige; he is apparently a broken soul or some deep shit like that. Aurelio appears to be quite a lot of things. However, one thing he is not is a satisfying protagonist.

The writers doubled down on giving Aurelio a multifaceted personality, at the expense of coherency and logic. He is incredibly inconsistent, his motivations are either cliché or incredibly vague, and makes bafflingly stupid decisions without any sort of consequences or penalty. This last part especially bugs the shit out of me. Aurelio is so ludicrously powerful it’s impossible to feel any sort of tension in any scenario he’s put into. He can sleep around with as many women as he desires, but he still manages to maintain the love of his family without any effort; he has a fuckton of assassins and police officers sent out against him, but his brother and lawyer almost always have his back, which means he’s invariably going to escape or come out without any deep scratch. All of this happens very early on in the series and pretty much sets the stage for all of Aurelio’s actions throughout the series, effectively ending any feeling that Aurelio might get fucked for the rest of the show. It is not remotely thrilling or intriguing to find out whether or not Aurelio wins or gets away with his actions in the long run, because the deck is always incredibly stacked in Aurelio’s favor for the sake of getting more out of the show.

He’s also impossible to like. Having an unsympathetic protagonist has been done before; however, it has been done so much better. I’d like to compare Aurelio Casillas to Walter White from Breaking Bad, because duh. They are similar in the vein that they are powerful drug lords who definitely enjoy what they do, but hold onto their human side and care for their family. However, Walter White’s actions throughout the show were completely in-character for him; he didn’t do a single thing we expected or anticipated, but never once did the script force him to break character or do something wildly inconsistent. Walter White was a pretty great character, and Bryan Cranston was outstanding in that role. Those same privileges are not extended to Aurelio Casillas. His status as a drug lord and his status as a family man are two completely different sides of him that never come together in a satisfactory or natural way. He is a sadistic, ruthless, power-hungry, lustful asshole, and yet we are expected to believe he is also a loving family man. His status as a loving family man is invalidated by the first ten episodes alone, having revealed he’s slept with multiple women during his marriage with Ximena, including some actress, the manipulative Matilde, and the faux-villain Monica. We’re supposed to assume that Aurelio feels guilt for his actions, but not only does his sense of guilt come completely out of left field, it’s been shown multiple times that Aurelio doesn’t give two shits about torturing or murdering to get what he wants.



Again, having an unlikable protagonist is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s been done well before. However, the show focuses nigh-exclusively on Aurelio. He needs to be sympathetic enough that those of us who aren’t drug dealers can root for him, dangerous enough that the audience needs to recognize he’s a threat, and act logical enough that these two sides of him can tie together. They never do, as point of fact. The scriptwriters were just interesting in having a fucking deep character, and they figured the best way to do that was throw in all sorts of random personality elements and pray to God the audience could find something to like.



All of the other characters aren’t much to talk about either. The show is wildly sexist and has a very petty, chauvinistic mindset; all of the women are fucking satellites around Aurelio, characterized only by their interactions with Aurelio or their feelings about him. This is especially true of Monica Robles, who is apparently not motivated by power, or the desire to gain territory, or the desire to one-up the Mexican drug traffickers; she is motivated by her love of Aurelio Casillas. She becomes even more of a stereotype in the second season; whereas she was a recurring figure who showed up in brief snippets each episode, she is constantly onscreen in the second season and her presence quickly becomes annoying and degrading. She fails as an antihero and a villain; she isn’t threatening enough to come across as a genuine danger to anyone’s safety, considering how the Robles absolutely suck at pulling off assassinations and heists, and any sympathy we feel toward her is quickly diminished by how petty and callous she can be. So she’s just a black hole, devoid of personality or true depth. Matilde isn’t much better; her motivations are never clear. The only thing we know about her is that she’s ambitious and sneaky, but her endgame or super objective are never shown nor even implied / inferred. She’s just there to provide drama, as a plot device. Characters need to exist within their own universe and make decisions that are sensible for them to make, not just because the plot demands it.



The men of the story are the ones who do all the important plot stuff, but guess what? They suck, too. The policeman Marco Mejia is perhaps the worst of the bunch; he hates Aurelio Casillas for torturing and killing his father, and basically obsesses over Aurelio. Now, rather than trying to destroy the supply line Aurelio has set up, rather than whittling down his supporters and suppliers and militaristic strength, he decides that the best course of option is to simply put Aurelio behind bars and do all the hard work afterwards, completely disregarding the fact that Aurelio’s drug trade system would continue to go on even if he was behind bars at all times. This is so laughably stupid, and we’re supposed to believe Mejia is good at his job. Suspension of disbelief doesn’t even apply here; this is just fucking stupid. Victor never registered, to me, as anything more than a plot device or a vessel for pointless, irrelevant drama.

So when the characters aren’t being stupid, the plot itself is really poorly told. It lacks a sense of urgency despite the rapid editing and pacing; a great many things happen, but it takes a fucking long time for the main plot points to surface. The first season is apparently all about Aurelio Casillas getting plastic surgery in order to operate unseen and undetected by those gunning for him. It takes a stunning seventy-four episodes for Aurelio to undergo this surgery. This is just icing on the shit cake; the script can be so frustratingly padded-out and superfluous that it can be flat-out unbearable. It is absolutely bombarded with poorly-choreographed gunfights and sex scenes when it should be dealing with the fucking storyline. Where’s the urgency? Where’s the sense that the characters are in any actual danger after a certain point? Why are the police so inept? The script is full of enough logical fallacies and inconsistencies that it’s practically pointless to flesh them out. We’d be here for quite a while if I tried to do that.


What I have basically sketched out is the argument that El Señor de los Cielos is a terribly written show full of slippery characters, a lifeless story, unengaging drama and nonexistent comedy. Even worse, this is just a rough outline of the basic problems the show has; there are many, many more problems both major and minor, broad and subtle, that pockmark the show. If this post has come off as nothing more than a tirade or disjointed complaining, forgive me, dear reader, but this is something that just leaves me in an irritated mood. I’m aware this is a fucking soap opera, and it’s not like, Hamlet, or anything, and I’ve probably disliked it more than it deserves. It’s no worse than any of the overlauded, over-produced soap operas on syndicated television. But rarely does one come across such a pompous, uncompromisingly shitty show. It does a great many things that never come together as a cohesive whole. Everything about it just puts me in a bad mood; because there are very few things I hate more in this world than people getting rewarded for doing a terrible job. This series has made way too much money for its own good.

And that’s that. If anybody reading this actually enjoys Cielos, more power to you, man. I won’t criticize you for enjoying yourself and being entertained, because that’s dumb. If you see some of the issues I pointed out differently, that’s fine. However, I have to view things from a critical perspective, being a critic myself, and from my own perspective, this is an absolute trainwreck that is nowhere near enjoyable as I was led to believe. It was a challenge to get through and a complete time-waster. Maybe next time I’ll actually review something fun and enjoyable!

God this show sucks



Til next time.

1 comment:

  1. Great series loved and hated Aurelio at times because he did females wrong but he could really love them also. Monica is the greatest for him she was always by his side. Loved all the actors/actresses please keep up the good writing & something for everyone.

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