Loving Pablo

As if the third season of 'Narcos' didn't exist, as if Benicio del Toro had never starred in 'Escobar: Paradise Lost', and as if the figure of the king of drug trafficking wasn't a stereotype canonized by thrillers addicted to the dirty business, 'Loving Pablo' looks us right in the eyes and tells us it has just invented chicken soup. Director Fernando León de Aranoa seems to think it's enough to invoke the voice of a star witness like Virginia Vallejo, a lover of Escobar's and an improbable television presenter. But he doesn't take into account what a hard time we have believing Penélope Cruz, who plays Vallejo as a heroine in a Colombian soap opera, or that the omniscient voice-over betrays the common sense guide to script-writing, or that the use of Spanglish takes away from the reality of a true story, or that all of it together results in a film that's frighteningly poor from a stylistic point of view. For his part, Javier Bardem does what he can to maintain his dignity.