El Senor de los Cielos: Volumen 1

El Señor de los Cielos is a retelling of the rise to notoriety by Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Fuentes became El Señor de los Cielos, or Lord of the Skies, due to the fact that he owned over 27 Boing 727’s which he used to distribute massive amounts of cocaine to the United States.

 

Going in, don’t expect to find Scarface or Breaking Bad. El Señor de los Cielos is most definitely done in soap opera fashion. Lots of dramatic stare downs, plenty of romance, and the occasional gun fight that’s faltered by poor decisions (see Casilla’s daughter, one minute afraid of the gunfire, happily run to her father during an immense gun battle). 

 

For the most part, you put aside the overdramatic factor often weighing the series down, the show is pretty addicting. I’m not to familiar with Fuentes, other then what I read of him on-line, but the show manages to make him both vicious and yet noble. What’s more, the show is massive in length giving the story plenty of time to develop and hit on major moments. 

 

My only gripes with the release include the show kind of starting off right in the middle. You get some flashbacks every now and then, but I had to check several times to make sure I didn’t get a bunk copy with maybe two sets of volume 2 discs. Fortunately, again, the show is given ample time and space to develop the story and move back and forth on the timelines to put things into play. 

 

Another gripe is the fact that the picture seems to be stretched. Pixels abound on the picture making it a bit distracting. Blur and aliasing are prominent on the picture a lot due to this effect. I’m not sure it’s just my TV, though I doubt it, but this could be a deal changer for some. 

 

Overall, the show is well acted, minimalist at best but with nice backdrops. Well worth checking out. Don’t worry, English subs are included if you Spanish isn’t great.