The astonishing story of Brazilian TV personality Wallace Souza takes us under the hood of murky South American politics, drug cartels and extortion gangs in this did-he, didn’t-he exploration of a self made man cum State Governor in the Amazon city of Manaus.

If ‘whodunnits’ are your thing, you’ll struggle to find a better combination of documentary and the true crime genre. Elegantly edited for deliberate disorientating affect, each instalment of this 7 part series introduces new characters, layers and perspective leaving the viewer suspicious, intrigued and confused on who to believe.

At the beginning of episode one, you’d be mistaken to think that this series is an autobiographical piece about the power and voyeurism surrounding reality TV however, the characters you’ll meet at the start more often than not turn out to be mere facades.

Beneath the glamour of fame and ‘democracy’ a strong stench of corruption lingers and carefully worded answers by the main protagonists mean the truth is a malleable.

Due to it being concentration intense and in Portuguese it’s advisable to limit yourself to one subtitled episode at a time; there is a lot to digest. High stakes criminality has never being so intriguing.

Viewed: May 2020

Rating: 8.5/10