Los Gringo Hunters

Exciting new Mexican crime series developing characters as the action moves at a rapid pace, following a special force unit who track down hard criminals, mostly Americans (them gringos) who jumped over the border to avoid prosecution from their country and hide out in Tijuana. The makers of this series are also not afraid to tackle issues in their own backyard - mainly corruption - as a local billionaire wants to turn Tijuana into a Los Vegas with the help of some wealthy yanks. Hard hitting without the over-the-top telenovela dross (but it does come close in certain parts), and also fascinating to see what is occurring on the other side of that imaginary Wall...

After Narcos, it had been a long time since I watched a Mexican series that truly captivated me like this. Gringo Hunters is absolutely exceptional. The storytelling is sharp and intense, and every single performance is nothing short of impressive. Each actor fully embodies their character, creating a gripping atmosphere that keeps you on the edge of your seat from the very first episode to the last.

It's rare to find a show where the writing, direction, and acting all align so perfectly, but this one delivers on all fronts. Every detail feels deliberate, the tension is masterfully built, and the emotional depth of the characters makes it impossible to look away.

Five stars feel like too little for what this series achieves. I sincerely hope they continue with more seasons, because this is a story and a cast that deserve to go even further. Truly one of the best shows I've seen in years, highly, highly recommended.

This is not at all as good as Narcos. The narrative is confusing and chaotic. Scenes are randomly strung together so that viewer continuity becomes impossible. While the story might be a good one, the narrative is so confusing that the plot is really never clear. The audio track is also very poor, and the Spanish dialog is hard to hear. It's really not a great series.

Forced scenarios. Highly trained professional team that comes off as untrained, unprofessional and many times incompetent. The autistic lady can hunt down criminals with a few key strokes and intense staring at the computer screen, amazing talent. The go into shootouts with back ups or body armor, we'll trained right... The screen writer's must be high school drama students. The dialog is nonsensical and not anything real law enforcement professionals would say.

This series from Ron Howard and others dives into fascinating stories of Mexican law enforcement tracking down wanted fugitives accused of committing felonies in the U. S. then fleeing.

It makes sense that there would be thousands of such cases, from organized crime, fraud, or extortion to killing or injuring a spouse or family member.

However, I find it annoying when shows rely on attention tricks like having experienced, professional women emotionally breakdown when in a stressful or life-threatening situation, or have a trained, specialized law enforcement team always violate protocol in order to make a scene more suspenseful.

An example of the first is in the "Test of Trust" episodes when gang members briefly abduct Gloria. That is also an example of the second, in that she goes solo at night into a dangerous barrio to look for a potential witness. The show repeatedly relies on officers not communicating with their team (keeping secrets even though every team member has one or more teammates they trust strongly) or going solo into dangerous situations without backup (and other breaches of safety protocol). I find these devices to be unrealistic and simply a gimmick to add suspense and emotional intrigue to hook the audience. At least in the first half of the series, Gloria is a strong, driven, and competent female officer who is a respected leader with all around her. Then later in the series she seems to fall apart, allows her criminal ex-husband to mess with her personal life, etc. Absent an addiction or other influence, the change in her character doesn't make sense to me. Archi's character is very inconsistent too- at times he's a disciplined, hard-charging officer then he almost refuses to arrest a fugitive couple because they have their kids with them (who they actually abducted). He goes from task-oriented and competent to blubbering, vacillating self-doubt!

All the team members seem to go through a psychological breakdown at the same time, often in kind of pathetic ways. Faced with attempts to sabotage the team from powerful forces, seems more likely this highly competent, tight-knit team would tend to rally and support each other not make it so easy for outside forces to pick each one off individually!

Also, sometimes characters have incongruous behaviors or comments. Example is at a team meeting, Beto goes from insisting that Ortega and the police chief are hellbent to find cause to fire each one of the team one by one, but a minute later as they wrap up he says everything is going to be just fine! There is quite a bit of that where characters seem to contradict themselves or violate their own supposed values and feelings.

Ron, you're better than that, but the subject matter is fascinating- the Mexico-U. S. border is typically portrayed as one-directional northbound re: illegal migration, but this series shows that it"s bi-directional!