Diksha Sundriyal
Greed and ambition become the driving factors in Netflix’s ‘The Courier,’ aka ‘El Correo,’ in which Ivan Marquez falls into the spiral of crime as his desire to make more money increases with each step he takes in that direction. The story starts from the beginning, painting a picture of Spain’s unstable economic situation, with every blow making it even harder for its people and economy to survive. But while the masses suffer, some people make a lot of money. By the end, however, even the ones who consider themselves untouchable have to face the music, and Ivan discovers it the hard way. SPOILERS AHEAD
Ivan Gets a Taste of His Own Medicine in the End
The world of crime is full of uncertainty. While a lot depends on the trust between people, it is also a well-known fact that anyone can betray anyone at any time. In the beginning, when Ivan gets the job as a courier, he has to earn the trust of his bosses, but while he passes the test of their trust, he also realizes that it is foolishness to believe in someone’s loyalty completely.
Ivan’s belief about the questionable nature of loyalty also becomes more relevant when he discovers that the cops are on their tails. For a long time, people like Anne (his boss and on-and-off lover) made money by looting the general public in tandem with all sorts of corrupt officials. For the most part, they are protected by their position and money, but eventually, there comes a time when their actions come back to reap the consequences, and everyone has to answer for their crimes. The ones who want to escape this have to find a compromise that gets them out of prison and gives the cops what they want more.
When Ivan first comes into the orbit of the cops, he is a small fish. The cops are interested in people much higher up the hierarchy, which is why they give Ivan a choice. Either he gives up the people he is working for, or he prepares to spend the next few years of his life in prison. The choice is pretty simple for Ivan, who doesn’t blink twice before giving up Paco Escamez. This works well for him for several reasons, but most importantly, it gives him more clients, which means more money. Moreover, it also diverts the cops from him, giving him all the leeway he needs to focus on expanding his business. But when he betrays Escamez, Ivan forgets that someday he will be in a similar position, and someone else might hold the key to his downfall. This is what happens in the end.
After it becomes clear that the cops are out to get him, Ivan decides to leave the country with Anne. Before he can disappear into thin air, the men of Yao Ming get to him. To save himself from dying at their hands, Ivan comes up with a plan that serves them both. Due to the crackdown by the cops, sending money to Switzerland is out of the question, and Ming’s clients need the cash. He doesn’t know how to transport such a huge amount out of the country, which is when Ivan comes up with a solution. This brings the story full circle to the first scene of the movie, where Ivan is seen transporting $1.3 billion for the cut of three percent. He offers Anne to be a part of his plan, but she decides to split, and Ivan has to go with it alone.
It would have been quite a thing to end up with that kind of money and disappear for good, but when he thinks he has everything he needs, the cops catch up to him, and he realizes that someone gave them that information. Someone ratted him out. Naturally, Ivan’s first suspect was Escamez, the guy he had betrayed. He thought the man would want revenge, but how would he know what Ivan was planning? There were only a few people who knew about his plan, and most of them were Yao Ming’s men. They didn’t seem like the kind of people who would profit from Ivan’s arrest and the siege of billions of dollars of money belonging to their clients.
The only other person who knew about the plan was Anne, and the cop later confirms that it was, in fact, she who told them everything about his plan and the money. Why would she do that? To save herself. Just as Ivan is being taken in, we see Anne being escorted out of the police station, which leaves no doubt that she had been kept in custody because the cops wanted to know if her tip was right. In return for divulging this information and giving up Ivan, she received her freedom, and nothing is more important than that, not even money and love. And Ivan acknowledges that. While he is heartbroken that Anne betrayed him, he knows that he cannot really blame her. If he were in her position, he would have done the exact same thing because, just like her, survival matters to him more than anything or anyone else.
Read More: The Courier: Is Ivan Marquez Based on a Real Criminal?
