NBC DRUG-CARTEL DRAMA STEEPED IN VIOLENCE

If you're seen the NBC promos that glorify the network's violent, six-hour
Mexican drug cartel series, "Kingpin" (10 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday, Channel
2), you may be disappointed.

The promos quote national news magazine and newspaper reviews that have
"proclaimed" "Kingpin" must-see TV for the next three Sundays and Tuesdays.

NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker has compared David Mills' script to
Shakespeare; others have labeled it "The Latino Sopranos." Mills' mentor,
Buffalo's David Milch, told him it was "ambitious."

However, even though it's based on the late leader of the Juarez, Mexico,
drug cartel of the 1990s, "Kingpin" may be too ambitious for its own good.

Inspired by "The Godfather" and "Miami Vice," it focuses on
Stanford-educated drug lord, Miguel Cadena (Yancey Arias), who is married to
a manipulative, cocaine-sniffing "gringo" attorney, Marlene (Sheryl Lee).
The power couple is attempting to take control of a family-run Mexican drug
cartel while avoiding enemies from within and the federal agent, Delia
Flores (Angela Alvarado Rosa).

Arias and especially Lee are actors who command the screen and infuse their
complicated characters with energy and realism. Unfortunately, many Mexican
characters in the first two episodes available for review are completely
cartoonish. And the results of one violent scene are as realistic as the
action in "Star Wars" movies. Would you believe someone is shot, left
bleeding in a car trunk for hours and survives?

If so, then you may agree with the hype that "Kingpin" "is so good that it
belongs on HBO."

The inevitable comparisons to "The Sopranos" arise because Miguel is
conflicted about the way he makes a living. Rather than see a psychiatrist
like Tony Soprano does, Miguel goes to a priest for counsel.

Like Tony, Miguel is a family man, with a 10-year-old son whom he adores. He
wants to keep his business and family lives apart, only breaking his
controlled facade in a Tony Soprano-like moment when an over-the-top,
crooked Mexican police officer brings a dead DEA agent to his home to
celebrate.

The police officer is a more realistic character than Ernesto (Jacob
Vargas), the son of the drugged-out, exiled cartel leader. Ernesto is an
ill-tempered and quick-triggered leader with a pet tiger, whose answer for
every problem is Shakespearean: kill all the lawyers. Well, not exactly. It
is more like "kill the district attorney" or "kill the judge." Subtlety
isn't in Ernesto's arsenal.

For some comic relief, Brian Benben plays a nervous plastic surgeon who
operates on cartel figures who need to look different from their wanted
posters. Character actor Miguel Sandoval gives the series a desperately
needed dose of realism.

Miguel's most difficult task may be to get viewers to care about him as much
as they seem to care about Tony Soprano. If Arias pulls that off, then
"Kingpin" could return as a regular series.

In an interview in Hollywood, writer Mills said he wanted to tell a tragic
story about a guy who had two sides. "If Miguel was just evil, he would not
be interesting," said Mills. "What I think will draw us back to him is that
we see these human impulses in him. And we are going to root for those human
impulses to survive."

The politically-correct impulse among critics was to question why this first
dramatic network series in some time with a largely Hispanic cast is about a
drug family.

"I am fed up with the notion that when it's a white character and white
actors, it's a universal story," said Mills. "But when it's a Mexican
character and a Latino actor, it's a story about Mexicans. No, we're telling
a story about a human being. ... The audience is going to be touched on a
human level and not on a level of their ethnic category... I'm willing to
bet, and I certainly hope, that the Latino audience, will embrace this show
more than anybody and love it."

"I don't think you'll find any Latino actors who don't want to work on the
show," added Bobby Cannavale, who plays Miguel's loyal brother, Chato.
"Actors want good parts and that's really the bottom line."

Of course, many of the parts don't last long. Mills' script kills them off
quickly.

"To me, this pilot is all about surprise," Mills explained. "I hope you were
genuinely surprised at least four times."

What was surprising was that Mills created the cartoonish villains by
design. "The writers came to think of them as "Batman' villains," said
Mills. "They're cranked up just that much so they bring that outrageousness
to it."

Stylish, ambitious, outrageous and occasionally foolish, "Kingpin" rolls in
the gutter of life and has as many misses as it does strikes. It is not HBO,
it is just violent TV.