Iron Reign

This is AT LONG LAST a true Spanish series, the best ever for me, though I admit not have seen so many of them. But at least, it is ten billions times better than the CASA DEL PAPEL junk, garbage crap destined to all kinds of audiences, under and over fifties housewives, truck drivers, convicts, budding young executives, teens.... Crap. This series is gritty, bloody, taut, rough, tough, not for sissies. I LOVE IT !!!! And that's the first time I see Sergi Lopez handling a machine gun or simply acting in a crime flick. I particularely recommend the fifth episode where you watch the most terrific knife - fist- fight of all times for me, grittier than any other filmed stuff, even Asian movies from the seventies. This scene between Sergi lopez and another character is purelly outstanding. So realistic.... And this series, which the plot takes place in Barcelone harbor, among giant containers, this series looks very likke another one, from France, and called DE GRACE, but taking place in LE HAVRE harbor, another crime drama involving a family, with a patriarch and his sons.... But DE GRACE was less crime than drama, there was no undercover cop scheme, unlike this one, which is an authentic mafia crime series. In both TV shows you also have many flashbacks, concerning the family story. And the partriarch character here, with the iron hand, is the equivalent of Olivier Gourmet's role in DE GRACE. And I don't know if you have noticed, but both actors - Gourmet and this Spanish actor - HAVE THE SAME EYES !!! Not face, BUT EYES, same glance. Please try to check by yourself. Not face but eyes. What a coincidence....

Show has the proper mixture of everything that make a good crime show. Crime family with tensions between members. Crime enterprise hiding behind the facade of legitimate business. Large shipment of drugs going missing. Various crime families circling each other "we are friends, we work together but we'll punch on you if we see you as weak". Colombian drug cartels. Undercover cops. Events from decades ago still casting shadows and secrets. But somehow it all fails to come together and leaves us with a disjointed story that is all over the place, betrayals that make little sense, people acting stupidly..... Too bad.

Pros: Intriging concept. Mafia-like family controlling the port, with people trying to take over the throne, the backstabbing, the betrayals, the side deals, etc. So initially you get the idea of this being a Spanish version of Rome Suburra......except the execution is no where near the Italian counterpart.

Writing. There are so many scenes involving someone calling somebody's name or saying 'stop'. Way to many. Just irritating.

Very few 'real' conversations. Instead, it was people reciting individual sentences to progress the audience to the next scene. 'I am going to take our daughter and drive her to school' or 'I am going to call my brother on the cell phone and invite him to lunch tomorrow' are example of statements made to inform the audience what the character will do next, instead of natural conversation.

Direction. The shaky cam, multiple edits within one scene, face close-ups, loud music during action...all the necessary tricks to decieve the audience that more is going on. The fight scenes are choreographed so badly that one person actually had a knife over their head bringing it down to stab someone, I almost stopped watching from that scene alone. People would all have guns but for some reason forgot they had guns and fight hand-to-hand for no reason at all.

Ex Machina.....for a city with almost six million people, there appears to be only one coffee shop, one restaurant, one alley, one police station and only one side of the port because people kept running into each other by coincidence, throughout the series.

I liked the concept: gangsters running the port in Barcelona, with some family drama and internal tensions. The actors were good. At first, it wasn't trying to be too clever.

As the episodes wore on, the bad writing kept decreasing the enjoyment for me, until I positively disliked watching the last two episodes. I kept watching hoping it would redeem itself, but it only degenerated into implausible subplots and gratuitous diversions.

Others have pointed out some of the poorly written scenes, but it's even worse than that: the timelines don't even match up. Miki will head out in his car at night and then arrive in broad daylight, even though we know the two places are not that far apart. Other times things are happening with characters that are clearly meant to have happened before other scenes. I'm not talking about the flashbacks, which are also annoyingly overdone and distracts from the main storyline, but at least they make it clear when it's a flashback.

With only slightly better writing, this could have been a good watch. As it is, I recommend skipping it.

I must admit that after watching the first episode I was not positive at all. I found it poor and very planned, like trying to imitate the really good series on this topic. But oh boy! I'm glad I gave it one more chance, starting with the second episode it's something quite different, very exciting and with great action scenes and better dialogues, I also really like the combination of the different characters. Very powerful! Many scenes will take you to the edge of your sofa due to the tension and suspense.

I found the sex scenes totally unnecessary, although I have always seen it as something very typical of Spanish series and movies.

The great cast of actors is a very good choice and the photography in the seaport of Barcelona is an interesting and different premise.

The actor, Eduard Fernández, Joaquin Manchado in the series, is really good in his role, he becomes the capo, the Barcelona 'godfather' of a criminal network that he manages with an iron fist, and not just metaphorically. ...but..the decision to replace his hand with an iron hook, due to an accident, seems exaggerated if I may say so.

If you're a fan of these cruel bloody crime thrillers, a lot of good action and mystery plots, then don't miss this one. Is a really good production.