Narcos a tale of depravity and virtue

iolence stalks Colombia like a biblical plague,” author Mark Bowden wrote in his 2001 book Killing Pablo, a non-fiction account of the hunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

Violence certainly stalks Colombia in Narcos, the Netflix television series that chronicles the real-life stories of the Colombian kingpins of the cocaine trade in the late ’80s and early to mid ’90s — and the law enforcement and political officials who go after them.

In Narcos, the drug lords’ rivals are executed with chainsaws or literally torn apart after being tethered to motorcycles driven in opposite directions. And that’s just in Season 3, which focuses on the Cali Cartel kingpins who are considered the gentlemanly godfathers.

In Seasons 1 and 2, Pablo Escobar’s brutal Medellin Cartel — and the equally brutal vigilante group Los Pepes that opposes them — strew bodies and limbs everywhere. So many officials are assassinated it’s truly hard to keep track.

How is it possible to watch such savagery without losing your mind, or at least your lunch? Maybe by taking refuge in the knowledge that the show is an admittedly fictionalized version of real life, complete with a lengthy disclaimer before each episode about how some names, places, and pretty much anything else you can imagine, have been changed.

But the truth is that the series’ depictions of drugrelated barbarity — and how easily humans can descend from functional forcefulness into full-fledged sadism — are more realistic than you’d think or hope.

Just consider that the fate of Narcos’s Season 4 — which was to focus on the Mexican Juarez Cartel — remains uncertain after the show’s location scout was found shot to death in his car this fall in Mexico, where he’d been looking for spots to film.

Or better yet, hit the library and reread Bowden’s book, which shows how Pablo Escobar graduated from being a young debt collector known for “casual, lethal violence,” to becoming the world’s richest drug lord, known for bombing a Columbian passenger jet in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate. (Unfortunately, he was successful in killing the 107 people on board the domestic flight.)

After all, there’s little need to embellish for dramatic effect when the real story is so … well, dramatic. Escobar was responsible for the deaths of at least 270 civilians, politicians, journalists, judges and policemen. His personal hit man claims to have masterminded somewhere on the order of 3,000 murders on Pablo’s behalf. Oh, and for the short stint he spent behind bars, Escobar built his own luxurious prison.

Escobar was in many ways one of a kind (even if not as subtle or sympathetic as Brazilian actor Wagner Moura’s brilliant portrayal of him on Narcos). However, it would be a mistake to consider Escobar a bizarre aberration.

As William C. Rempel’s 2011 book The Devil at the Table makes clear, the Cali Cartel heads — including the genteel Rodriguez Orejuela brothers, who prided themselves on their reputations as legitimate businessmen — were plenty vicious, cruel, paranoid and murderous.

That Narcos scene with the motorcycles pulling a man apart? It really happened. Just with Land Cruisers instead of Harley Davidsons.

But the Colombian cocaine story — both the real and TV versions — is not all horror and inhumanity. In fact, at this rather low point for North American democracy, we would do well to look to cartel-days Colombia and be reminded that even in a country beset with profound corruption and violence of an order we can barely imagine, there were always a few honest heroes to be found.

The real-life General Hugo Martinez may not have been as completely squeaky clean as he is portrayed in Narcos, but his true immunity to bribery and his refusal to take the easy way out despite the great personal cost of his efforts is still profoundly inspiring. (Narcos divides the real Martinez between two separate characters, only one of whom, the fictional General Carillo, is guilty of excesses and line-crossings.)

The same goes for General Rosso Jose Serrano, who was that rare Colombian police official not in the Cali Cartel’s pocket … and ultimately one of the architects of the successful plan to take the Cartel down.

As Bowden puts it in Killing Pablo, “Sometimes the fate of an entire nation can hinge on the integrity of one man.”

He is referring here to General Martinez, but the bravery and moral virtue of men such as President Cesar Gaviria and presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan (who paid for his rectitude with his life) also stand out.

Violence may indeed stalk Colombia, but its shadow is never dark enough to completely extinguish the light of virtue — a truth Narcos captures faithfully as well.