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Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010
NBC's drug-lord miniseries "Kingpin" isn't really a crude Latino rip-off of "The Sopranos," say its creators, it's ... Shakespearean! Plus: "Dragnet" -- it's about a cop.
Feb 4, 2003 | Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, unless the copycat has mixed feelings about the cat, in which case it can also be fairly handy as an embarrassing mistake. "Kingpin," NBC's new six-episode miniseries about a drug cartel-running Mexican family, which debuted last night, is neither an homage nor a mockery, but that most dispiriting of all blatant rip-offs -- the blatant rip-off that doesn't get it. "Kingpin" borrows so heavily from recent and classic crime-family films that you wonder how it will ever pay them back. Nevertheless, it's clear that the inspiration behind this story of a morally conflicted drug trafficker told from the morally conflicted drug trafficker's point of view comes from one show and one show only. Capiche?
Packed with as much sex and violence as standards and practices will allow, "Kingpin" was still a glimmer in NBC's eye two years ago, when chairman and CEO Bob Wright wrote that well-publicized bash-slash-mash note to executives, studio heads and producers. His missive was accompanied by a tape of a particularly violent episode of "The Sopranos," which he denounced as something "we could not and would not air on NBC because of the violence, language, and nudity," while at the same time urging his people to come up with a critically acclaimed scourge and highly rated menace of their own as soon as humanly possible. So here it is. "Kingpin" is what you get when you suck the soul (and the fat) from "The Sopranos," throw in some movie references and crudely stitch it all together: Aaron Spelling's "The Godfather IV: Stuck in Traffic."
In an attempt to discourage unflattering comparisons, both creator David Mills and NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker have been diligently working the "Macbeth" angle in the press lately, wisely trying to draw comparisons to productions most viewers are unlikely to have seen. (Zucker told TV critics last month: "Where some see 'The Sopranos,' I see Shakespeare.") But they really needn't bother. If it weren't for the fact that there are lots of drugs lying around and idealistic DEA agents getting shot, you'd never know anything all that fishy was up.
The kingpin of the title is a suave Mexican drug lord named Miguel (Yancey Arias), the Cadenas family's answer to Michael Corleone. (Just to prove it, he has the same name, a similar hairstyle and a WASPy, well-educated American wife.) A slick Stanford-educated MBA, Miguel yearns to run the business like a corporation (though maybe yearns is too strong a word; Arias' taut, chiseled face registers only the tiniest of emotions, which are known to cause wrinkles).
Given the way corporations are run these days, Miguel's dream seems comfortably within reach. His power-hungry American wife, Marlene (Sheryl Lee), is the perfect horny helpmeet. They share approximately half a scruple between them, but Marlene lets Miguel hold it. The problem is that, while Miguel bribes judges and makes charitable donations like a legitimate businessman, his Tio Jorge becomes an opium addict and puts his crazy son Ernesto (who appears to reside in the Versace flagship store) in charge. Ernesto feeds a DEA agent to his pet tiger, Marlene becomes sexually aroused when Miguel orders his uncle killed and some jealous voodoo cousins start infiltrating their son's dreams and experimenting with magic spells that are supposed to make people immune to bullets, but don't. ¡Ay, Lucy! ¡Que familia!
Oddly, Miguel glides through the wackiness and the bloodshed without ever messing up his hair, but his general air of distraction, and his guilt about not joining his son in a game of backgammon, hint at some emotional discomfort somewhere -- or maybe there's a piece of gravel in his shoe. Given the couple's utter lack of affect, it's not surprising that Zucker recently described the dramatic conflict of "Kingpin" as "far closer to the conflict and internal guilt that a Hamlet or Macbeth feels."
Of course, internal conflict is a lot more interesting when paired with brooding soliloquies than with facial near-paralysis. Aside from occasionally losing his temper (say, when crazy cousin Ernesto shows up at his house with a dead DEA agent in the truck), Miguel seems about as conflicted as a buttered turnip. Marlene, too, is fine, thanks. They are so fine with everything, in fact, that they don't appear to have bothered to come up with any sort of "waste management"-type lie to tell the kid, who, young as he is, is probably going to start asking where daddy got the private jet with the hot stewardess any day now.
Obviously, "Kingpin" exists in a more rarefied world than "The Sopranos," but it would still be nice if the family could display a few recognizable human characteristics. Also nice would be any sort of insight on what it's like -- you know, emotionally, psychologically, socially, whatever -- to be a big drug lord. Isn't it a stressful job? (Then again, Tio Jorge describes it by saying, "I have seen the flames of hell! I have swum through rivers of blood!" so maybe we don't want to know.) Still, when you think about how much sleep Tony Soprano has lost over some stolen fiber-optics cable, and then compare it to Miguel Cadenas' discreet wince as he watches his cousin feed a federal leg to his cat, it's hard not to wonder what his secret is.
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