"El Pico 2," the sensational follow up to director Eloy De La Iglesia's cult hit of the previous year, we get to see what happens to Paco after his best friend Urko dies of a heroin overdose in the first film. The story follows him through a brutal prison term, through many scams and violent confrontations both inside prison and in the outside world, as Paco goes to exhaustive means to stay alive, while attempting to control his always escalating drug habit. The second installment is, in some ways, superior to the first film, which dealt with other challenges besides drug addiction, such as Paco's difficult relationship with his overbearing father, and his mother who is dying of cancer, as well as his intense friendship with his drug buddy, Urko. "El Pico 2" is all about the heroin, Paco's main struggle that outshines everything else in his life. As his friends die, and his father becomes more distant, and Paco's freedom is robbed from him, the struggle to obtain heroin inside prison while constantly fending off rape and robbery attempts from fellow inmates, becomes his entire world. The way this film details how addiction affects an addict both physically and psychologically, is brilliantly handled. Paco starts to look like a walking zombie with dark rimmed eyes and starving body, and actor Jose Luis Manzano finally gets the opportunity to show some true acting skills here, as he is required to show intense emotions, such as extreme fear and anger, and hopelessness. " El Pico 2" features Manzano's finest performance of his short career, (an actor whose life was similar to those of the characters he played in his films,). Manzano died at the age of 28.
The title of this review refers to the fact that there are currently no subtitles for this movie in existence. And this is ridiculous and completely unacceptable, because the lack of subtitles is preventing the entire Anglo-speaking World from seeing this excellent movie, a film that would definitely gain a huge cult following if the distributors would simply create a subtitled translation. It's unbelievable that even the new bluray is without subtitles, which leads me to suspect that it's some copyright issue, as nobody could be this clueless in 2020. Thankfully subtitles can be found for the first movie, for those willing to invest the time, but that only makes the fact there is nothing for the second movie, even stranger. This genre, known as "JD" movies, (Juvenile Delinquent films) is a very popular genre, internationally, and during the late 70's into the early 80's, a number of these movies came out of Spain, during the Franco Era, which gives the films historical value as well as immense entertainment value, Movies such as "Colegas" and "Navajeros," and "Perros callejeros" actually starred real life juvenile criminals, instead of fake, pretty actors, and this practice resulted in the extreme glorification of crime, turning teenage bank robbers and drug pushers and killers such as Angel Fernandez, into celebrities. Fernandez especially, known as "El Torete," was idolized by the younger generation, and they became pin-up models for kids who were attracted to their strength and rebel image. Who wants actors when they can have the real thing? These are certainly iconic films and deserve more recognition today.
