It’s called the “caravan of death” – cars speeding, Mad Max-style, across the desert on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, loaded up with jerry cans of petrol. Colombian film-maker Andrés Baiz, who previously worked on episodes of Netflix’s Narcos, has directed this crime saga inspired by the real-life “pimpineros”, smugglers who exploited dirt-cheap petrol during the presidency of Hugo Chávez. But strangely, this film keeps to the speed limit; it’s like Formula One with enhanced health and safety, slow-paced and a little low on adrenaline.

The year is 2012, when sixpence bought a gallon of petrol in oil-rich Venezuela, leading to a boom in cross-border smuggling to Colombia. A trio of brothers, the Estradas, have been muscled out of the smuggling business by ruthless Don Carmelo (David Noreña); he’s a nothing-special villain with his wolfish grin and novelty shirts. Moises, the eldest of the Estrada clan (played by Colombian rock star Juanes), retires to open an Italian restaurant. Ulises (Alberto Guerra) joins Don Carmelo’s mob; like Fredo in The Godfather, he’s the undisciplined one. Little brother Juan (Alejandro Speitzer) decides to go it alone, smuggling with his girlfriend Diana (Laura Osma).

The movie starts off on a fun high, with beat-up old cars racing across the sun-bleached desert. But the action gets toned down in favour of sentimental melodrama as the story switches to Juan and Diana’s startup smuggling business. In this macho world the film sets up Diana as the hero, a woman among men. But still, the script can’t resist treating her like a little lady, with a plotline as conventional as it gets, in which she is trafficked into sex work. It’s a film in need of sharper writing.

• Pimpinero: Blood and Oil is on Prime Video from 22 November.