‘Colosio: Political Assassination’ Review: Examining One of Mexico’s Most Notable Crimes

Structured more like a true crime series than a political documentary, Colosio: Political Assassination tackles one of the most controversial cases in modern Mexican history: the 1994 murder of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. Across three episodes, each built around a fairly clear theme, the show examines the competing theories and speculation surrounding what happened on that fatal afternoon of March 23 in Lomas Taurinas, Tijuana, when the then-popular candidate was shot twice during a campaign rally.

At least initially, the central thread follows the case from the perspective of the family of Mario Aburto, the man who remains imprisoned as the sole perpetrator of the crime. Yet both he and those close to him—as well as several journalists—have long claimed either that he wasn’t the killer or that he didn’t act alone, pointing in particular to the possibility of a second shooter. The footage from the scene appears to clearly show his involvement in the first shot, but the second—fired when Colosio was already on the ground—remains far more ambiguous.

As is often the case in stories like this, the idea of a second gunman opens the door to conspiracy, pushing the narrative away from the “lone wolf” framework that initially defined the official version. The series leans into that uncertainty, working through archival footage, photographs, family testimonies, and previously unseen material to piece together what might have happened, expose judicial mishandling, and consider who else may have been involved. More crucially, it asks: on whose behalf?

That question leads the documentary into the political landscape of Mexico at the time. The second episode focuses on the tensions within the PRI sparked by Colosio’s candidacy, which in several ways challenged the party’s neoliberal trajectory under then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Now in his seventies, Salinas appears on camera to offer his own account. Still, the series shows limited interest in ideological debate, preferring instead to explore the murkier criminal undercurrents that may have intersected with the assassination.

The third episode dives deeper into one of the most persistent hypotheses—the existence of a second shooter—laying out different possibilities, surprises, and lingering speculation that remain unresolved to this day. In that sense, the series delivers a fairly conventional package: talking-head interviews, archival material, and the now-standard stylistic toolkit of true crime television, here applied to a political killing that stunned a nation. It doesn’t aim to go much further than that: its primary concern is generating investigative suspense rather than offering a deeper political analysis of the event or its long-term impact on the country.