# Crime Diaries: The Candidate (2019)

> In 1994 Mexico, a dying widow races to uncover who assassinated presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/74569

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 8
- Episode runtime: 32 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, crime, mystery, history
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Jorge A. Jimenez, Ilse Salas, Alberto Guerra, Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Evaristo Valverde, Ari Brickman, Martín Altomaro
- TMDB rating: 7.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9327348/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: tense, melancholic, sober, claustrophobic

## What critics say

Audience reception is positive, with viewers praising the political thriller's tense investigation into the 1994 assassination.

## Synopsis

Crime Diaries: The Candidate (2019) is a Mexican national-television drama series created for Netflix, a limited series of eight roughly half-hour episodes. Jorge A. Jimenez plays presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, whose assassination in 1994 sets the story in motion, while Ilse Salas plays his widow Diana Laura Riojas, who is dying and races against time to uncover who killed him. Alberto Guerra's Federico Benítez and Gustavo Sánchez Parra's Comandante David Rubí Sánchez form part of the investigative circle around her, and Jorge Antonio Guerrero plays Mario Aburto. The engine of the show is a grieving woman pushing through official silence, closed doors and a political establishment that resists scrutiny, with each episode unpeeling another layer of suspicion. Set in 1990s Mexico during a fraught election season, the series carries the weight of a real national crisis. Its tone is sober, tense and claustrophobic, with a melancholic undercurrent of mourning. Fans of The Night Of, Narcos and Chernobyl will find resonance in its grounded, true-events approach to power and cover-up.

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