Netflix’s latest dive into the gritty world of cartel crime shifts the lens away from the kingpin and onto the badge. Through the 91-minute runtime, the Mexican action-thriller Facing El Chapo (originally titled La Captura) tackles the dramatic true story of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán’s final takedown - not through the eyes of the cartel, but from the perspective of two federal officers whose routine patrol unexpectedly thrust them face-to-face with the world's most wanted fugitive.

Even though El Chapo stories have been in the public mind for years, the specifics nevertheless pique people's interest.

Netflix's Facing El Chapo dramatizes the real-life capture of former Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera and his deputy, Jorge Iván Gastélum Ávila. The majority of the narrative takes place after they flee the Mexican Marines on January 8, 2016, steal a car, and attempt to travel to more hospitable areas before being apprehended by two federal highway officers.

Press coverage has referred to that operation as Operativo Cisne Negro, or Operation Black Swan. The production's foundation is derived mostly from the available journalistic information on the case rather than cooking up some thrilling fiction taking any and every kind of liberty. Bernardo Esquinca wrote the screenplay for the movie, which is based on two testimonies by Mexican journalist Héctor de Mauleón published by El Universal.

Since Guzmán was extradited to the United States in January 2017 and found guilty in 2019, his subsequent history goes beyond the encounter further explored in the movie's plot. A year after the arrest in Los Mochis, which put an end to his second escape from a Mexican prison, Mexico decided to send him north.

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The two federal agents in the movie have a big role in the whole incident, and what transpired that day goes beyond luck or a fluke. 

The two federal highway officers who stopped Joaquín Guzmán and Jorge Iván Gastélum Ávila are fictionalized as Arturo Carmona and Hector Rosales. While on patrol in the state of Sinaloa's Los Mochis, the two stopped a car that had been reported stolen and found Guzmán, the Sinaloa Cartel's boss at the time, inside.

Following their superiors' direction, the cops drove Guzmán and Gastélum to the city's outskirts, where they eventually sought refuge in motel room 51 on the Los Mochis San Miguel highway. While other details were altered for dramatic effect, Netflix's Facing El Chapo retains that particular detail as a clear reference to the real-life incident to add to the reality of the whole ordeal.

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What do you think of the true story attached to the Netflix thriller? Do let us know.