In “Sicario” (Spanish for “hit man”), Del Toro is the titular character, a man poisoned and empowered by 20 years of drug war barbarism. Meanwhile, sci-fi fans blew up Twitter after reports that Del Toro would portray a new villain in “Star Wars: Episode VIII” and reprise his character the Collector in “Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. Just days after the release of his latest film, “Sicario,” a dark drug war thriller from Oscar-nominated director Denis Villeneuve, news broke of a possible sequel. chiefs wanting to solve the Camarena case are reminded by top Reagan officials that Mexico is our third largest trading partner and is ''politically important vis-a-vis Cuba and Nicaragua.'' The agency could charge that two tons of heroin are coming into the United States each week, as big a shipment as from any Medellin cartel, but all they got in reply was a domestic ''just say no'' campaign, long on words, short on cash.Benicio Del Toro was having a moment. But for the most part they are seen as dedicated men asked to do a job that leads to little but official frustrations. Some drink too much, and there is a troubling vigilante propensity toward ignoring inconvenient laws. The drug agents are not portrayed as saints. But considered as one clearly biased view - the D.E.A.'s - of the drug wars, ''Camarena'' is remarkably convincing in its cogent details. In terms of letter-perfect ''history,'' in short, the production can be easily faulted. She keeps popping up periodically to say things like: ''You marry a cop, you have to share him with the scum of the earth.'' Elizabeth Pena, playing his wife, Mika, is reduced to being a device to include the so-called woman's angle in this male-monopolized story. The figure of Camarena - depicted passionately by Steven Bauer - is of course real. Nelson), Camarena's boss and close friend, whose angry determination keeps the investigation moving forward Ray Carson (Treat Williams), a New York policeman sent to Guadalajara to head a special task force pursuing the killers, and Tony Riva (Miguel Ferrer), a special agent in Guadalajara, created from the stories of four real agents. Major characters, primarily among the Americans, are composites. This being a docudrama, complete with real Tom Brokaw news reports, there are the inevitable adjustments made under the fuzzy heading of dramatic license. Mann continues the drug story without the distractions of music-video glitz. A connection between drug profits and the financing of American plots to overthrow the Sandinistas was being noted long before the White House was caught up publicly in the Iran-contra scandal. Beneath the rock music and Don Johnson's fashionable clothes and cars, many episodes were remarkably attuned to the realities of drug dealings in the greater Miami area.
Not insignificantly, the executive producer is Michael Mann, whose television action-adventure credits include writing episodes of ''Starsky and Hutch'' and ''Police Story'' back in the 1970's and, the last decade, being executive producer of ''Miami Vice'' and ''Crime Story.'' ''Miami Vice'' was a landmark series in more ways than one. The television story is told, with unflagging sympathy, from the drug agency's point of view. officials waged their own campaign, in the press and on the streets, to find Camarena's killers. Stonewalled by Mexican - and American - authorities in the subsequent investigation, D.E.A. While the book covers a large canvas, from Guatemala and Colombia to Panama, the television adaptation focuses on Mexico and the abduction and murder in 1985 of Enrique (Kiki) Camarena, a United States Drug Enforcement Administration agent based in Guadalajara. Her basic attitude is reflected in the subtitle: ''Latin Drug Lords, U. The script is based on the book ''Desperadoes'' by Elaine Shannon, a reporter for Time magazine and a veteran observer of the drug scene.
The reasons range from obscene profits and widespread corruption to national interests and geopolitical maneuverings.Ī portion of the discouraging situation has now been dramatized in a sprawling and messy, yet powerful, television movie called ''Drug Wars: The Camarena Story.'' The six-hour NBC presentation begins tonight at 9 and continues tomorrow and Tuesday at the same hour. The current drug crisis provides ample proof that this particular war has been a colossal failure. The United States' ''war on drugs'' was first declared by President Richard Nixon in the early 1970's.