Mal negocio

King of Stonks can often be too chaotic for its own good and I'm sure many people will give up on the show partway through because of that. The first episode has promise but episode 2 and 3 are far too scatterbrained to be anything other than a moderately entertaining but very disaffecting distraction. However, if you stick with it from episode 4 onward the show slows down a bit, takes a breath, fleshes out its character, and turns in to a smart, occasionally funny, and surprisingly suspenseful financial thriller that certainly left me wanting more. I hope the show gets picked up for the second season they clealry planned on making.

Nice touch: in S1E3, Felix looks at a slide deck on his laptop. The scene starts at 00:28, we can see two slides, and the scene is cut 2 seconds later. The funny thing here is that the slides are based on the PowerPoint Slide Master of the company Wirecard (WCD). It cannot be ruled out that the show used original Wirecard-slides. Especially, the 40% CAGR, the world domination map looks all typically Wirecard from the financial year 2016/17. It stands to reason, that someone familiar with the subject and with mischievous ulterior motive used that old template or even a slide deck from that company.

It's corny and the memes are dorky and old fashioned. It's over the top and all over the place. A lot of kitsch. But I liked it. It's fast and funny. You're never bored. I can't help but compare it to a dark/funny Norvegian equivalent called "Exit" which is a stellar series about 4 wreckless egomaniac yuppies, really great plot and great actors. Kings of stonk does not have this, but in some strange way I just enjoy it a lot. It has a certian warmth that I like and it's unpretentious and fast.

I didn't miss "depth" - especially not that one permanently pregnant with meaning and underscored in minor by strings, so many German movies and series are dripping with.

Hey, this series is a bit imperfect in some way, yes, but it's entertaining. I was stunned sometimes and sometimes laughing a lot. On the one hand it seems to be very exaggerated behaviours and dialogues, but on the other one especially this feels painfully real knowing quite some bosses and employees and working conditions, which are not very dissimilar to those in the show.

My conclusion: This mini-series is good to binge and doesn't feel like almost five hours length all in all. I'd wish more German productions to be made that way. My dispair and shame regarding the general condition of German film would be less then.

Based losely on the story of the biggest german financial Scandal of the Fintech Wirecard (Just google Wirecard.... ) mixed with Wolf of Walstreet elements. Painfully grotesk and extremely entertaining if you know the Back story.