By Jessica
On to the man-eating tigers! Frankly, I think every show could use a man-eating tiger. Instead of asking Joe Millionaire's spurned lady friends to leave the chateau immediately, they could just throw them to man-eating tigers! Instead of Simon Cowell's wrath, the kids on American Idol could wrestle a man-eating tiger! Instead of listening to Dawson yammer on about the beauty and poetry inherent in a the process of editing a teen slasher film, we could just feed him to the man-eating tiger! Come on! That's programming gold, baby!
Anyway. Just so you know, NBC is advising viewer discretion. Those sensitive to violence, drug use, rampant stereotyping or extensive use of cheese are advised to look away. And I'd like to start by mentioning that while I am neither Hispanic nor a drug dealer, I'm going to be try to be sensitive to both demographics. As long as I'm still allowed to make jokes about tacos and blow. (Don't get me wrong: I grew up in Los Angeles. We know from tacos and blow. Dude, I love tacos and blow. Hopefully, this background will give me some useful insights.)
We open on a sun-drenched, dusty construction site. The cinematography in Kingpin is very influenced by Traffic, I think. It's interesting, and I think it works for the subject matter, although I might just be saying that because most everything I learned about drug dealing, I learned from Traffic and because Steven Soderbergh is my secret director boyfriend. Although I keep pressuring to introduce me to George Clooney. Two men stand amid a passel of trucks and bodyguards and chat in Spanish. One of the men is our hero, Miguel Cadena. Who's pretty cute, really. But he has this very distracting mole on his nose. It's really a rather large mole. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Mole has his own hair and makeup people. Miguel tells the other guy (who has a very realistic-looking porno-style moustache), "Even if there's an earthquake, this hospital will still be standing." Look at that! He's doing good for the community with his drug money! He's sensitive! He cares! He's a twenty-first-century renaissance drug-dealing man! Moustache thinks this is all just wonderful. "Your generosity will be remembered for many, many years to come," he says. "Gracias." They're shaking hands when a posse of SUVs comes roaring into the construction site. Miguel clearly recognizes the cars and looks a little ill at ease. Behind him, his bodyguards exchange exasperated looks.