The first time you see Sofia Vergara as the notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco in the six-part Netflix dramatic series “Griselda,” you’re likely going to feel compelled to Google the real-life Blanco, about whom Pablo Escobar reportedly once said, “The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco.”
Even with distracting prosthetics and false teeth, Vergara looks nothing like Blanco. Such is Hollywood. Still, even though the attempt at a makeover is an unfortunate distraction, the former “Modern Family” star goes full Pacino-in-“Scarface” mode and delivers a robust, screen-rattling, suitably over-the-top performance in this blood-soaked series from the creators of “Narcos” that plays like an extended B-movie. (The Colombian-born Vergara’s performance is almost enough to make us forget the regrettable work by the terribly miscast Catherine Zeta-Jones in the 2017 Blanco biopic “Cocaine Godmother.”)
Though based on real-life events and adhering to a number of major events in Blanco’s life, “Griselda” is highly stylized and fictionalized, as is the case with virtually all of these based-on-a-true-story gangster movies and series.
We open in the late 1970s in Medellin, where Griselda is hurriedly tending to a nasty wound before rousing her sons in the middle of the night to tell them they have to leave, NOW. Cut to Miami, where Griselda and the boys all hole up in the guest room of Griselda’s old friend Carmen (Vanessa Ferlito), who, like Griselda, has escaped a drug cartel husband.
One big difference between the two: Carmen is running a small travel agency and trying to live the straight life, while Griselda has smuggled in a kilo of prime cocaine and plans to use it to make some quick cash, and more important, make the right connections in Miami.
With 1970s and 1980s tunes popping on the soundtrack, the characters often speaking in Spanish, and the cars and fashions mirroring the era, “Griselda” carries an air of authenticity as the titular character quickly establishes herself as someone who isn’t afraid to get blood on her hands. And on her shoes. And on her face. As long as it’s someone else’s blood and it means Griselda is climbing the ladder, she will not hesitate to order a hit, or to do the job herself.
One of the strengths of the series is the supporting ensemble, with a myriad of terrific actors playing colorful and often violent assorted drug lords, hired muscle and mules. Griselda initially employs the services of a group of sex workers to smuggle in the coke in their bras, with the Colombian singer-songwriter Karol G playing Carla, who becomes one of Griselda’s most trusted allies. (The series makes the claim Griselda was a former sex worker, something the real-life Blanco denied.)
Alberto Guerra does electric work as Dario, who was ordered to find Griselda and bring her back to Colombia, but winds up saving her and eventually marrying her and having a child with her — a child they name Michael Corleone, which actually DID happen.
Other key characters include Amilcar (José Zúñiga), the Miami cartel boss who is one of many, many, many men who underestimate Griselda; Arturo (Christian Tappan), the obligatory mob accountant who keeps track of the mountains of cash Griselda and her team rake in as she expands her business through much of Miami, and Rivi (Martín Rodríguez), a hardcore hitman who also has a philosophical bent. To the credit of the writers, it’s easy to keep track of these individuals and a half-dozen other notable players.
As you’d expect, we also get some much-needed balance and a truly decent and heroic character on the other side of the law in June Hawkins (a wonderful Juliana Aidén Martinez), the real-life Miami police intelligence analyst who was instrumental in bringing Griselda to justice. (There’s some heavy-handed messaging about how June and Griselda are both single moms dealing with misogyny every day and how they’ve taken very different paths.)
“Griselda” contains a few too many speeches in which the woman who becomes known as “La Madrina” (“The Godmother”) rallies her army of dealers and killers as if they’re gearing up for a big football game, but there’s never any attempt to make her some kind of underdog anti-hero. True, Griselda endured horrible experiences in Colombia and did what she had to do to protect her family, but once she was in Miami, she had any number of opportunities to cash out, to take her family and disappear, to stop with the dealing and the killing — but she became consumed with ambition and descended into paranoia.
Like Pacino in the aforementioned “Scarface,” Griselda descends into a drug-addled state of madness, becoming her own worst enemy and betraying everyone around her. The series ends on the most tragic of notes, as Griselda reaps what she sows and then some. That part is absolutely accurate to the terrible and destructive life of the real-life La Madrina.
