Loving Pablo has certainly moments of guilty pleasure but leaves an empty feeling when reaching the end. This is the story of the rise and fall of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. The very clever pairing of Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz as the strongly larger-than-life couple gave this production a shot at the international box office before it will go to smaller screens. Very much action-packed, Loving Pablo marks a turn towards the mainstream for Fernando Leon de Aranoa, the Spanish writer-director best known for social and political dramas.
What ends up holding the film down to its level of superficial glitz is being adapted from Vallejo's novel/memoir Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar. The story is told almost on that basis and that's the min limit.
