The first Brazilian series on Amazon Prime, based on Tony Belloto’s novel (2020) and on the biographical account The Witch’s Kiss (2009), written by Victor Lomba – Pedro Dom’s father in real life – doesn’t disappoint.

Against the backdrop of the military dictatorship, the beginning of the war against drugs, and the origins of the dissemination of cocaine in Brazil (in the early 1970s), we first meet Victor Dantas (Dom’s father, played by Filipe Bragança in the 1970s scenes of the series ), a naive and idealistic young man who gives up scuba diving and joins the police to fight the drug traffic.

Then, the series, in the course of three seasons, covers the development of Victor’s activities as a police agent, his marriage, the birth and raising of his kids, and the overall vicissitudes of the family until 2005.

The story of a middle-class family dealing with the addiction of one of their members, Victor’s son, Pedro Dom, a bright and energetic teenager, who starts snorting coke at the age of fourteen, and then rises to become one of the most feared and famous criminals in Rio, will keep you glued to the screen.

Since the movie City of God, Rio‘s complex environment (inequality, favelas, drugs, political corruption, and the destruction that chemical addiction inflicts within loving families) has never been shown with such brutality and realism.

Unlike City of God, though, the series’s producers don’t shrink from showing Rio de Janeiro in all its glorious beauty. So, scenes depicting the extreme poverty of life in the favelas are contrasted with stunning views of Copacabana Beach.

The cast is fantastic across the board.

The love and bond between the father, Victor (played in his maturity by the excellent Flávio Tolezani), and the problematic son, Dom (Gabriel Leone‘s charismatic performance makes the character rather likable, a glamorous antihero) feels very real and moving.

Dom and Victor are played by different actors at different ages – all of them do a wonderful job!

Don’t miss it.

If you saw the show and read any of the books about Pedro Dom, please leave your comment in the section below.

Jorge Sette