Amazon Prime’s Latest Crime Drama Zero Zero Zero Is A Unique And Disturbing Look Into The Drug Trade With Less Glamour And More Grit

When the family business becomes a life sentence. Photo courtesy of ZeroZeroZero IMDb

Andrea Riseborough and Dane DeHaan in ZeroZeroZero

Countless movies have been made about the drug trade, usually with a glamorous or Hollywood action film bent to it, but then along comes author Roberto Saviano who takes it to the next level, one of heartbreak, loss, and willfully distorted perspectives with a side of twisted morality all in the name of protecting the family business and making a few bucks along the way. Not everyone is a bad guy, not everyone is a good guy, and if you’re not careful, the lines between good and evil merge into one with little to no chance of survival for anyone involved.

ZeroZeroZero begins in the arms of hopeful redemption when a former mob boss named Don Minu while living in exile near his home town in Italy, intends on making a comeback by purchasing a large shipment of cocaine from dealers in Mexico through an American shipping contact who will also transport the shipment to Italy to be sold as profit for Don and as a means to reestablish the cocaine trade route that once ran through the town below his mountainside home, giving the town another source of income. Once the distributor in the states contacts their Mexican counterparts and the deal is made, elite members of the Mexican army try to disrupt the deal-making process and, when that fails, they then try to shut down the factory where the cocaine is being made and packaged for the journey to Italy, with little success. While the army interference is delaying the shipment, the American contact is struggling to find a new more cost-effective boat to ship the merchandise to Italy and to make the deadline for when the shipment from Mexico arrives. The owner of the business unexpectedly passes, leaving his daughter (Emma Lynwood, played by Andrea Riseborough) and son (Chris Lynwood, played by Dane DeHaan) to run the family shipping business from here on out, including the cocaine shipment. And that’s only in the first episode.

Even the elite can become misguided. Harold Torres in ZeroZeroZero  

Photo courtesy of Zero Zero Zero IMDb

Once the shipment finally leaves America, the ship and crew experience several severe mishaps, including a run-in with pirates, a crew mutiny, and dodging corrupt government officials threatening to confiscate the cargo from the ship when it came into port, even after the officials accepted several large bribes to look the other way. However, Emma and Chris find a way to transport the cargo to another port, this one owned by friends and business partners that are able to ship the cargo to an Italian port, but the journey to safe passage was not without great loss and suffering to nearly all involved.

The Lynwoods and their transportation problems are only one facet of the story. While their nightmare was unfolding, the elite members of the Mexican army that were previously trying to stop the drug trade coming in and out of Monterey, Mexico decided to join in on the fun and create their own army, in town, to run out the other drug lords and reap the profits. While all of that is going on, back in Italy Don Minu is busy trying to avoid other mob bosses who want to kill him and intercept the shipment for themselves, the local police who want to prosecute him for other drug-related crimes, and family members who want to kill him and start a mob war within the town to gain control of the soon to be established cocaine run. Let’s just say in every episode there is a lot to take in, but it’s well worth the mental investment.

Dane DeHaan as Chris Lynwood. Photo courtesy of PoG.com

All in all, the series is fantastic. Granted, the first episode is a little dry but the series genuinely takes off after that and keeps the story flowing right up until the bitter end. There is a lot of depth and detail to each episode and each storyline, and an interesting throwback inserted in each one to introduce parts of the story that couldn’t smoothly be worked in earlier in the episode. You’ll have to watch it to see what I mean, but again, it is absolutely worth your time to do so.

The official series trailer can be seen here

The ZeroZeroZero IMDb can be found here