this show has been type-casted as the Sopranos on daytime TV. But i think this show is as good or if not better than the Sopranos. Kingpin is much more stylish with the camera and music then the Sopranos is and Kingpin hardly eases up there is constant action going on on screen. This show was made to be aired on Cable for the drug and violent content and i do believe this show could of beat out the Sopranos if it was made into a regular T.V. series and if it wasn't so restricted on content, overall if you like the Sopranos then you are more than likely love kingpin and even if you don't like the Sopranos you should give it a try for the massive amount of raw energy put in this TV Show.

Score 5/10 As seen on NBC and inexplicably spread over three DVDs, The six hour mini-epic Kingpin is now available to all those who blinked and missed it. Visually stunning with great sets and production values Kingpin certainly looks great. The story is another matter. Scarface minus the Godfather plus American Family then mix thoroughly with network standards and practices and you really have a mess. The story cries for more sex and violence. The acting is a mixed bag with Yancey Arias giving a great performance as the head guy. Sheryl Lee chewing scenery as his shrewish Anglo wife and most embarrassingly Brian Benben hopelessly miscast as an indebted mule/plastic surgeon. Yep it is Nip/Tuck meets The Shield without the grittiness of either series as well as a lot of unsubtitled Spanish to wade through. After you watch the first twenty minutes you will say to yourself hey this is really cool. Do yourself a favor and turn off the TV. It is the only way to preserve the feeling.

I gotta to say I'm very impressed with this mini-series. I never knew there was a mini-series but I borrowed a DVD series from a friend of mine. When my girlfriend and I watched it, it was very packed with tension moments and action! My girlfriend happens to be a Mexican and it's another insight for me to see what kind of a life in Mexico could be like. She and I always talked about each series before beginning another one, about what it would happen next. Half the time we'd get it right but each time we were right, two things would go into a completely different direction. This is a very good series! I've got to say, THIS IS A MINI-SERIES TO SEE!!! A must have DVD mini-series!!!! I want to see this on a network program! The last DVD at the end left me hanging and wanting more!!

Although I'd like to some day, I have never seen "The Sopranos" and therefore cannot compare the two. Not having even regular cable or satelite has certainly limited what I can see on TV, which is not necessarily bad, either."Kingpin" struck me as something of a cross between "Traffic" and "The Godfather," with Miguel Cadena as the Michael Corleone character (soft-spoken, college-educated, etc.). The show certainly was a risky endeavor for NBC, as it focused mainly on characters with no apologies for what they do. And while this was no masterpiec of television entertainment, it was certainly, in my own opinion much more intriguing than Reality TV, and even some of the police dramas that are so popular on the Big Three (NBS, ABC, CBS).As the title character, I sometimes thought that Miguel was perhaps too weak, not that Yancy Arias was not good in the role, but even Michael Corleone, in his calmness, killed two men, one of them a cop. The editing seemed to usually convey the story well. While his character was not terribly important, Brian Benben's Dr. Klein offered some much-needed comic relief to an otherwise grim miniseries.Marlene was certainly very tough and sexy, and Chato made the series interesting as Miguels older brother, who, sometimes quite surprisingly and inventively, took care of eliminating unwanteds.As the series came to a close, however, I became less interested in the Cadena family, although both the scene where Chato killed the policemen who raped him, and the scene where their uncle strangled the senator with a garote were both very exciting. I became more and more interested in the DEA's part in the series, after Delia Flores got mixed up in the investigation into "Truck" Thompson and his narcotics officer cousin, Rolando Porter.Unless there was enough of an audience to suggest this become a regular series, I think that in the end there seemed, somehow, to be a lack of closure for the characters.