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Medellin begins with a car chase where our leads are being followed by a particular baddie about to shoot them, until it jumps back to three days earlier…
Back in France, Reda (Ramzy Bedia) dreamed of being a boxing champion… cue a Rocky spoof, albeit briefly. Meanwhile, his dumbass brother, Brahim (Brahim Bouhlel), has spoofed Pablo Escobar online because he looks similar to the drug kingpin, and has been kidnapped by the narcos in Medellin, the second-largest city in Colombia, after Bogotá.
So, Reda, with friends Stan (Franck Gastambide, who also directed and co-wrote this) and dwarf Chafix (Anouar Toubali), have the unwise idea of heading over to Colombia to rescue the kidnappee, which will necessitate a visit to a strip club called the Barrupta, because reasons.
Again, not the best move, since after doing a load of cocaine, there, plus drinking more than their body weight in alcohol, they return the favour by kidnapping Don Nacho (Ariel Sierra), son of this area’s kingpin, El Diablo (Raymond Cruz), so, a quick swap and they’re out of there… right?
Well, if it was that simple, the film wouldn’t last 106 minutes, but thanks to some help from cop Marissa (Essined Aponte), around an hour in, English dialogue breaks the French flow and comes to the fore, as Mike Tyson shows up as her friend, Robbie, who’s been fighting narcos in Colombia all his life. The disgraced former boxer won’t win any Oscars in 2024 for this performance, however. I’m not going to get into what happened in this review, but you can see the details, here.
Overall, Medellin has some great car and motorbike chase scenes, but the plot is completely ridiculous and the film goes on far too long. There’s also a Narcos reference I had to look up, as I haven’t seen that show.
As an aside, during the target practice scene, once they meet Robbie, we get Alan Parsons Project’s Sirius, the instrumental part just before Eye In The Sky on that album. Wish we had more of that played in this film, though, although you can hear it in full below, instead.
Thanks to our friends at Amazon Prime Video for the screener prior to release.
Trailer posted: May 28th 2023 1:00
Updated with review: May 30th 2023 18:00
Medellin is on Amazon Prime Video from Friday June 2nd, but the film isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 106 minutes
Release date: June 2nd 2023
Studio: Amazon Prime Video
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Rating: 5/10
Director: Franck Gastambide
Producers: Eric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer
Screenplay: Franck Gastambide, Charles Van Tieghem
Music: Paul-Marie Barbier, Julien Grunberg
Cast:
Reda: Ramzy Bedia
Stan: Franck Gastambide
Chafix: Anouar Toubali
Brahim: Brahim Bouhlel
Marissa: Essined Aponte
El Diablo: Raymond Cruz
Robbie: Mike Tyson
Don Nacho: Ariel Sierra
Vétérinaire: Bernardo Garcia
Réceptionniste: Jairo Ordoñez
Ragnar: Matthias Quiviger
El Colosso: Vincent Bersoulle
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.