El crack

I know very little about Spanish cinema and even less so about Spanish thrillers, action films etc. So I was very curious about this film, that according to some sources on the internet would something extraordinary.

However, I was very disappointed, this film tries very hard to be a film noir/neo noir from Spain but offers very little to the viewer. There are lot of clichés in this film that makes other, more recent Spanish productions in the same genre more appealing.

The story about a private detective looking for a missing girl is standard within this genre, or the sleuth genre but would have hoped that screenwriter or the director would have tried to create at least some tension or plotwist that would surprise the viewer.

But not so here, here we get same story/clichés stuffed down our throats again. Areta is former police officer, a bit of loner, he is a good man surrounded by bad people in a corrupt world.

This and the fact that the script is flawed, contains loopholes, makes me wonder if I have seen a very heavily edited film and that an uncut version is out there somewhere?

One positive thing about this film is Alfredo Landas powerful performance in the main lead. I only wish he had a better script to work with.

Technically the film is lacking, almost bland in it's cinematography, looking like a cheaply made TV production from the 80's.

Future viewers should watch this film because of its position as an obscure film that has gained very little attention here on IMDb. Just don't expect too much.

Viewers should rather watch La caja 507 (2002), El Lobo (2004) if they want to see better crime thrillers from Spain.