[imagesource: ESUS ABAD-EL COLOMBIANO/AFP/Getty Images]

On December 2, 1993, Pablo Escobar was shot and killed after a shootout between the drug lord, his bodyguard, and Colombian police and military forces.

The shootout took place on a rooftop in a middle-class neighbourhood in Medellin.

Escobar had previously survived a number of attempts on his life, including those by Scottish mercenary and ex-SAS operative, Peter McAleese.

McAleese was hired in 1989 to lead a small team of ex-special forces commandos on a mission to assassinate Escobar, and that story is the focus of a new doccie, Killing Escobar.

This from BritFlicks:

With heartstopping drama reconstruction, access to never-before-seen footage of the mission and first person accounts from both the mercenaries and the cartel, Killing Escobar is a documentary thriller that reveals how one man’s violent upbringing in Glasgow, training in the SAS and experience as a mercenary in Africa led him to the jungles of Colombia and the heart of the Medellín cocaine empire.

At 78 years old and returning to the Catholic faith of his youth, McAleese reflects on one of the most ambitious and perilous assignments of his career; the one that pushed him closer to death than any other, a mission to kill the most feared man in the world, Pablo Escobar.

It definitely takes a certain kind of person to lead a team into Colombia to try and off the head of the Medellín cartel:

I’d say this looks bloody terrific.

According to Variety, it’s produced by Glasgow-based Two Rivers Media and Salon Pictures, the producers of David Bowie film Stardust.

That’s a bit of a warning sign, as Stardust was widely panned by critics, but I remain optimistic:

The 90-minute film also contains archive from McAleese’s life, as well as interviews with other key participants in the story, such as: fellow mercenary Dave Tomkins; DEA officers Javier Pena and Steve Murphy (the subjects of Netflix’s hit series “Narcos”); and McAleese’s Cali Cartel liaison Jorge Salcedo, whose experiences in Colombia also inspired the Netflix series.

Killing Escobar screened at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this month, and began streaming across UK cinemas last week.

You can also watch it online here.

[sources:britflicks&variety]