With a title as generic as Bandidos, the series is set up exactly how you’d expect: a charming group of antiheroes and weirdos somehow coming together and pulling off improbable schemes while cracking jokes and flirting with each other. There’s a reason this formula works, of course, and the show’s charismatic cast helps greatly in making this a smooth watch—especially during set pieces that almost always end in narrow escapes. But the series also isn’t able to inject enough of its own personality into the story (at least in the first two episodes watched for this review), which when coupled with obligatory, forced romance and uncomfortable jokes constantly made towards a minor, only causes Bandidos to fade into the already oversaturated realm of heist shows and movies with the exact same attitude.
A gang of skilled misfits ventures to uncover a long-hidden Mayan treasure. Their strategy? Hazy. Their dynamic? Off. Luckily, they're pretty ingenious.
A crew of thieves seek the ancient Snake King's treasure while on the run from the law and rival treasure hunters.
These heist stories do tend to be more fun, though, when the heroes aren't master craftsmen or geniuses at what they do, and when their successes involve just a little bit of luck. Bandidos definitely has more of an everyman quality to it than other similar shows whose characters might have an extensive military or police background, and that helps the characters be easier to root for. So during set pieces in which the protagonist has to, say, drop down from a second story ledge, this feels far more consequential because you know they don't have that much literal armor protecting them.
If you close your eyes and listen carefully, you can hear Vin Diesel grunt, "Family."
