Loving Pablo
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment | Release Date: October 5, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
12
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaOct 3, 2018
But for all its missteps, it's tough not to be engaged. Cruz's full-tilt flamboyance is just too much fun, and her more down-to-earth moments can be devastating. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattOct 4, 2018
Escobar’s story hardly lacks for plot points, and director Fernando León de Aronaoa (Mondays in the Sun) hits them all obligingly, if broadly. What he doesn’t carve out much room for is richer character motivations or context. Read full review
60
The GuardianCharles Bramesco
The film places a greater focus on the notion of unwilling complicity than most in the gangster genre, but still struggles to produce much original insight. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comNell MinowOct 5, 2018
Cruz is stunning in Vallejo’s exquisite couture ensembles and impeccable makeup. But like the film itself, they are just on the surface. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJessica KiangOct 4, 2018
This unintentionally hilarious take, on territory covered much more soberly and with far less reliance on prosthetic bellies in current Netflix hit “Narcos,” is so trashy it may even make you forget a few things you knew before. Read full review
50
The Film StageJared MobarakOct 3, 2018
Loving Pablo had the opportunity of making Virginia Vallejo its star. It should have pushed Escobar to the background so Bardem could shine as a villain-in-waiting instead being gifted the spotlight. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloOct 2, 2018
Cruz gets little to do in general apart from wear a succession of gaudy ’80s outfits, while Bardem, who gained weight for the role (reportedly aided by prostheses), acts primarily with his massive, frequently exposed gut. Both actors speak throughout in heavily accented English rather than Spanish, a choice that exemplifies Loving Pablo’s indifference to authenticity. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah Young
Like flipping through the pages of a pulpy best-seller, watching Loving Pablo has its moments of guilty pleasure but leaves an empty feeling when you reach the end. Read full review
50
Screen DailyJonathan Romney
The awkwardly executed English-language Loving Pablo is a brash but ultimately anonymous, sub-Scorsesean number from Spain’s Fernando Leon de Aranoa. Read full review
40
Time OutSergi SanchezOct 4, 2018
Javier Bardem does what he can to maintain his dignity. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyAlan ScherstuhlOct 4, 2018
Double-stuffed with kill squads, killer ’80s couture and mood-killing howlers, Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s Loving Pablo is more a greatest hits than a story, the kind of radically compressed life-of-a-legend movie where everything happens in a giddy, ridiculous gush — except for when it slows down to dwell on horrors. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinOct 4, 2018
Tolerating Pablo might have better suited this unremarkable picture in which the wealthiest criminal of all time’s reported charisma takes a back seat to his badness. Read full review
40
The GuardianMike McCahillSep 14, 2018
Escobar is not without interest, sweep or colour, but bears signs of high-level, edit-suite indecision over what sort of movie it wants to be. It’s an alluring product, inexactly cut. Read full review
40
VarietyGuy Lodge
Long, loud and lurid, with a distinct whiff of week-old quesito colombiano, Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s pulpy Pablo Escobar biopic promises an alternative spin on familiar material by taking the perspective of the drug kingpin’s glamorous journalist lover Virginia Vallejo. Yet she turns out to be as stock a presence as anyone else in this blood-spattered chunk of cartoon history. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineDerek SmithSep 28, 2018
The film uncomfortably dwells in a murky middle ground where everything is overblown but meant to be taken at face value. Read full review
25
Film Journal InternationalStephen Whitty Oct 4, 2018
Why is she attracted to him? For that matter, why are we watching? Read full review
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