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Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Undercover Law (La Ley Secreta) (the Colombian version, not the Dutch one)


Undercover Law Demo | Caracol Internacional
Caracol Play

I'm not too sure about this. It looks like Charlie's Angels, we've got four good looking, young women like Charlie's Angels, but the show has been transplanted to Colombia. The women are working for the DPI*, which, presumably, is the Colombian equivalent of our very own DEA. So good looking women. That gets it a plus one.

The dedicated DPI agents (as opposed to the those being coerced) greet their boss with 'For God and Country' which is a fine thing, but then again it makes it sound like a religious order, which perhaps it is. There are numerous scenes of satellite imagery and the cop's computerized control center which makes me realize they are probably just as high tech as our cops are. It's kind of a surprise because most of Latin America is supposed to be so poor. Hmm, with our growing homeless population and increasing inflation maybe we aren't so different.

I think it does a fairly good job of representing undercover work. That's another plus. The four women have been sent to infiltrate four different aspects of the illegal drug business. We've got one woman working as a cook in a jungle camp where the drugs are produced. We've got another living in the poor people's district, fooling around with a low level drug dealer in Bogota. The third is working as fitness instructor, trying to get in with upper class people who are helping organize higher level distribution and the fourth is playing house with her ex-boyfriend, trying to infiltrate a money laundering operation run by rich people. All this is being done to get to the kingpin.

The guy running the camp rules with an iron fist which I have come to expect in any show about the illicit drug business. He executes a snitch, never mind that the snitch claimed that the police had threatened to kill his family if he didn't snitch. The police / military don't come off any better. Several times people tell us that a family member was either kidnapped or murdered by the police. And the honchos running this undercover operation don't garner any sympathy either. One woman is only working as a snitch to avoid being sent to jail after being caught trying to smuggle drugs to America. Never mind that her boyfriend set her up to get busted so that several other mules would get through without being molested.

Another woman's mother is dying of cancer and she is very attached to her mother, perhaps even overly attached, but then not everyone is a cold hearted bastard. Anyway, the only way she can get her mother treatment is continue working undercover, which takes her far away from her mother.

On the downside, it's a soap opera, long scenes of people being mopey, or flirty, or flakey, or argueing, so that kind of drags. There seem to be a disproportionate number of women, but maybe I'm just used to watching shows that are full of men. We're eight episodes in right now and it's moving along, but I fully expect several of the characters to start acting insane in the next week or two and that will probably be the end of it.

Netflix 60 episodes, about one hour each, in Spanish with English subtitles.

*Ask Google about DPI and you get the National Police of Colombia, but nowhere did I find an definition of the acronym that refers to the police. I think it must be the Department of Police Intelligence. It does show up in the opening. Kind of weird, man.


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