"Daddy, the D.E.A. is what I am, not what I do." - Angela Alvarado as Agent Delia Flores
Kingpin: Producer's Cut DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Miguel Cadena (Yancey Aria), a Ciudad Juarez hotelier, is having a bad week. His opium addicted uncle, head of the family's drug business, is out to sea on the run from law enforcement officials. Miguel's older brother Chato (Bobby Cannavale) is stuck babysitting the old man. The American educated Miguel and his Anglo wife Marlene (Twin Peaks' Sheryl Lee) feel that he is the logical choice to take over the business, but his uncle has instead appointed his hotheaded son, Ernesto "El Huevudo" Romo (Jacob Vargas), to run things in his absence. Ernesto threatens to destroy the family's trade with his erratic behavior, which includes feeding a dead D.E.A. agent to his pet tiger and chasing Marlene around the house with a bullwhip. That's when Miguel, whose education and polish have always been undervalued by his brawny family, sets in motion his plan for the "unexpected" deaths of his uncle and cousin.
Dr. Heywood Klein (Brian Benben) is also having a bad week. This Houston-based plastic surgeon often drops $30,000.00 or more on visits to the race track, forcing him to supplement his income by selling some of Miguel's cocaine on the side. After being pulled into the scheme to kill Ernesto, Dr. Klein vows to quit the drug business. When his estranged wife, Lorelei (Sean Young), citing his gambling habits, demands a two million dollar payment as part of their divorce settlement rather than a stake in his earnings, the doctor is forced back in.
And D.E.A. agent Delia Flores (Angela Alvarado Rosa)? Well, it was her partner who became kibble for Ernesto's tiger. She takes the blame for the botched assignment and gets transferred to Houston where she is given the hazardous duty of transcribing wiretaps. She longs to get back into the undercover life, and sees fellow officer Bobby Curtis' (Malik Yoba) investigation of drug dealing club owner/record promoter Truck Thomas (Darius McCrary) as the perfect opportunity.
Sound confusing? Maybe a little, but Kingpin turns out to be one of the most daring, intense, exciting series to grace network television in the past few years.
Kingpin at first seems to be The Sopranos transplanted to Mexico, especially since ads for the show sold it that way. The series actually turns out to be much more than that. With its wide range of characters and dense storylines, the show is much more expansive than its HBO counterpart.
Because of this, the pilot episode is somewhat hard to follow. It hits the ground running and trusts that the audience will keep up. It does not take long to adjust to the rhythms of the show, however, and it becomes almost instantly addictive.
Part of the appeal of the show is its strong sense of place. For television, Mexico is an exotic locale, and the production design of the show is stunningly fresh and visually stylish. Like Miami Vice and Twin Peaks before it, Kingpin is set in an environment that TV viewers are unaccustomed to seeing, and the result is that the place itself becomes another unique member of the ensemble.
The series is also spiked with liberal doses of dark humor, sometimes stemming from violence. From Brian Benben's nebbishy weasel of a dealer to Lupita (Elpidia Carrillo) and Manny (Danny Trejo), Miguel's voodoo practicing cousin and her husband, each episode features several belly laughs. The scene in which Manny attempts to prove that his guards are impervious to bullets thanks to a magic necklace is especially memorable. That humor is often the result of the series' finely drawn characters, a trait that makes the series dramatically satisfying as well.
Kingpin premiered on NBC in the winter of 2003. It garnered favorable reviews and, in its first outing, respectable ratings. Executives at the network unwisely chose to run two episodes of the six episode tryout each week for three weeks. This may have confused viewers, and subsequent airings did not live up to the initial ratings.
NBC toyed with renewing the series for the fall, but ultimately chose not to. That is truly a shame. Television history is littered with quality shows that failed to catch on and mediocre shows that somehow become successful. Add Kingpin to the former category.
The six episodes are divided onto three discs. While the series initially ran on network television, the DVD is actually rated "R." It presents the "Producer's Cut" of the series, featuring added nudity, violence, and profanity. Each episode is divided into four chapters. The menus are too busy and hard to read, but are serviceable.
