Sleeping with the devil is a risky proposition. Sleeping with his angel-eyed niece is equally detrimental to one’s health. Marry that lady, you can be sure her family comes with the package, and God help you if your lady’s last name is Escobar.
Looking for a simple life, Canadian surfer Nick (Josh Hutcherson) finds his paradise go up in fire and brimstone when he gets involved with Maria (Claudia Traisac), who happens to be the niece of Pablo Escobar (Benicio Del Toro). Presented as a seductive dichotomy of piety and ruthlessness, Benicio Del Toro plays the main antagonist to the personification of Lucifer the prince of lies.
A hybrid romance thriller, the movie jolts to a start in medias ras (in the midst of things), before taking us back to the sweaty sweltering idyll of the Columbian seaside where adventure begins. A romance soon develops between Maria and Nick, who make up the first part of the movie.
As in John Milton’s 17th century poem of the same name, Nick succumbs to the temptations Maria presents and she announces his awakening with a cheerfully and giddy wide-eyed explanation that her Uncle Pablo Escobar makes all his money from the export of Cocaine, a product used by her people since time immemorial. Perhaps Nick should have noticed the same nonchalance in her tone that Pablo increasingly displays, when his true colours are revealed and the police drag nets close around him – a family trait no doubt. The second half of the film devolves into a gritty, grimy slop of fear, suspense and sweat when the colours of family, enemy, loyalty and betrayal are smudged by blood-stained hands into one single indistinguishable tone.
“Paradise Lost” is a semi-fictional work based loosely on an amalgamation of various real-life individuals woven into the autobiography of well-loved and loathed Colombian drug king pin of the 80s and 90s, Pablo Escobar. Benicio del Toro’s dark eyes, furrowed brows and yet stoic, lineless lower face chillingly depicts a complex personality devoid emotions who is a charismatic master manipulator that can profess his love and dispatch a hit squad in the same sentence. Josh Hutcherson, of “Hunger Games” fame, is convincing as Nick, a sheltered naive young man slowly being twisted and having his sense of morality being wrung out of him.
It is the characters that make this film, and what draws me to this movie is that it is made all the more alluring by the fact that this is a product of art imitating life. No amount of imagination could have conjured up the devil if he didn’t already exist to inspire his image.
Paradise Lost opens in the theatres on 2 July 2015.
