Every global television success implies a chain effect: the need arises to continue with that universe (tell Marvel) and, to the added pressure to repeat the triumph and glory, is added the risk of failure. The creators of The Money Heist They knew that all that was at stake before they dared with a spin-off which takes place earlier in time and makes one of the thieves from the popular series the protagonist even in the title: Berlin.
The ingredients are clear from the first minute: it is a product derived from The Money Heistwink here and wink there, with ingredients and tone of classic spectacular heist productions (think Ocean's Eleven: the multidisciplinary team, the action with very similar music in the background, the vault trick in the third chapter, etc.), international settings (a contemporary Paris that reminds us of that of Lupine) and humor to balance the bet. Let's add to the cocktail, as was already the case in the international success of Esther Martínez Lobato and Alex Pina, a love story, or several, and musical themes that the viewer recognizes (they will still remember how they became Bella ciao into a global hit) and we will have the essence of this new Netflix and Vancouver blockbuster.
The starting point of the plot is simple: the Berlin gang wants to steal 44 million in jewels from a Parisian auction house without leaving a trace. The perfect heist that by definition never goes completely right. This criminal part is well crafted, but it is weighed down by the other half of Berlin, the character and the series: romanticism. This is a fiction of thieves and love and there it limps, loses rhythm and lacks nuances. Berlin falls in love with the wife of the gallery owner who is going to be ruined and this can be more or less intense, but he gets into the plot and gives it meaning. The same does not happen with the love stories between the band members: too obvious opposites and a lot of unresolved sexual tension. The heartbreak, that of Berlin (an excessive Pedro Alonso but adjusted to that role of shameless thief and psychopath dandy) and that of Damián (his second on board, a Tristán Ulloa in his place) work better.
If we return to the robbery we understand that Berlin is not a character made to be liked: he is boastful, pretentious, a snake charmer and more, all the things he needs to be. His plan is also excessive, but that's where we are (don't forget where we come from). If the spectator enters, he does so with all the consequences and does not begin to measure whether or not that precision metal thread can cut the wall of a very high security safe. Nor does it leave the story because in all of Paris only Estrella Galicia is drunk. By the way, the Parisian exteriors are very good, especially the night ones, and the action scenes always have the clock set.
The second half of the eight chapters (also written by David Oliva and David Barrocal) focuses on what happens after the robbery. In every group of thieves there is always a traitor or an irresponsible person or both. We won't spoil more here, but the action heads towards the mothership, that is, back to the universe of The Money Heist: The followers of that one are waiting for Najwa Nimri and Itziar Ortuño, the two sub-inspectors who were a central part of the original series and who here team up with a French police force in the last two episodes to chase the bad guys, although the viewer does not realize it. see like this.
Incredible? Exaggerated? Fun but impossible? Perhaps, but Alex Pina explained his narrative vision in 2021 in EL PAÍS like this and that is where we have to contextualize Berlin: “The Money Heist It's crazy because some guys could never be locked up in the Bank of Spain because they are annihilated, but we have to do something that has other components, with its own internal rules, with which it has to be consistent, not with reality, which is despicable from the point of view of fiction. And when you do they say, 'Where are you going?' Well, gentlemen, there is Marvel, which has been the most watched in cinema for 10 years and does not stop gaining weight.” The ending is left open for the show to continue if it first becomes, as everyone aspires to, another global success.
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