What could I add more than the other users have already done? They told everything about this authentic gem from Spain, dark, bleak, violent, speaking of a brutal, borderline cop for whom the audience may although feel empathy, no matter the evil side of this character. The first sequences of the killing in the bar are astounding. I won't repeat the scheme, but this could have pleased to Olivier Marchal, William Friedkin or David Ayer. The brutal cop character reminds me the film SHIELD FOR MURDER, starring Edmond O'Brien, made by Howard Koch in the fifties. In the future, I will watch out for further films from this director

One day, a drunken police officer callously guns down two bartenders who refuse to serve him any more alcohol because he was already drunk. He does this after showing them his badge. One of them manages to get away. No real explanation is given at that time why he goes around killing people who would not let him have more alcohol. Later on, it is explained that he might have some psychiatric problems, though nobody is sure why he is then allowed to continue on the force, particularly after it is alleged that, prior to this, other persons may have been killed or seriously wounded by him.The movies then plods on, slowly and confusingly while this crooked officer searches for the witness ostensibly with the aim of removing him. At this point, it is brilliant why this witness did not just go to the police and ID him. It is because the witness was himself involved in illegal activity. Why not continue on this predictable path is beyond me. For some strange reason, the movies veers into an unnecessarily complicated direction, multiple characters introduced and disposed of without explanation. Thereupon, it stumbles onto right-wing red meat territory. There are Arab terrorists bent on blowing up people on the streets to protest the upcoming G-20 summit. The connection is tenuous, at best. First of all, it is like Arabs have nothing better to do but go around blowing up people. Secondly, G-20 summits don't usually attract Arabs. It is the domain of young people fighting inequality. But no matter. The silliness continues to where this cop stumbles upon the bombing plot, and kills three of the terrorists. Movies have plot twists all the time. The best of them challenge you or leave you in amazement because you don't see them coming. This one is a gratuitous shot at an easy target. In the end we are left with this unsatisfying feeling that a murderous cop is a hero because he gunned down the would-be terrorists. This confused maelstrom of a movie won awards alright because it panders to a predictable constituency. Much like fast food makes money even though there is no real nutrition, just sweeteners.

This film has won the most important awards given by the Spanish film industry, the Goyas, for best film, best director and best main actor(among others). I had great expectations when I got the DVD. However, once the opening scene is over, the film becomes a dull and confusing chase between the main character, the psychotic policeman Santos Trinidad, and his nemesis the instruction judge Chacón and the straight policeman Leiva. There are too many characters to be remembered and the inclusion of the 2004 Madrid bombings plot is too accurate to the point of resulting vaguely ridiculous. The worse part of the film for me was the absolute lack of understanding of why this man behaves as he does, other than been an alcoholic and a loner. This character has been widely praised here, but to me is a completely flat , unidimensional rendering of a supposedly complex human being. No redeeming features at all, miles away from the Javier Bardem character in No country for old men , for instance. The idea that all immigrants in Spain are basically whores, drug traffickers, radical Islamic militants or terrorists is deeply unsettling. I doubt that this film would have found financing in France, the UK or the US, as it is basically highlighting a reactionary message of incompetence of the democratic institutions ( the law and order represented by the instruction judge and the clean policeman) to act against rampant drug trafficking, Islamic terrorism, and police corruption. To avoid disaster, we are only left to luck. I have already mentioned how poor is the Jose Coronado acting, but he is excellent compared to other crew members. Juanjo Artero is a very popular TV actor in Spain, whose rendition on his character is awful even by his own standards (there is a TV series here named El Barco, the boat, where he is the main character, wonderful laughing stock). The former young heartthrob Pedro Mari Sanchez comes back as the fat, spectacled and corrupt superintendent from the anti-terrorist unit. Age has changed him , but his acting skills remain extremely limited. Same goes to the female instruction judge, a beautiful but rigid and stiffened young woman called Helena Miguel. Perhaps she might be luckier next time if she gets the chance. In summary, a overpraised police film based on a confusing plot, unbelievable characters and terrible acting. I would mention that the general atmosphere of suburban contemporary Spain is well drawn. But the deep message of this superficial film is certainly very unsavory.

This film transits common places without having anything new to say except that it urgently wants to up the grittiness ante -- which, much to my annoyance, it seldom succeeded in doing. This is a film that desperately wants to pull all stops in bleakness and wholesale desperation, and in filmmaking the last thing you should do is having the audience notice your intentions beforehand. A project of this sort demanded a director with more guts and nothing to lose and Urbizu doesn't seem to be the man.Coronado's job is excellent but it cannot rescue this film on its own from a comfortable zone of correct mediocrity. His fatalistic mien, coupled with a devil-may-care nihilism and a teeming rage which his character makes little effort in choking back, makes him altogether a train wreck waiting to happen.And happen it does, but the rest of the film falls short of his performance. Urbizu's style still needs a lot of polishing. Dialogues still seem forced and theatrical to the point of haphazard, totally at odds with the naturalistic tone his protagonists demand. Supporting characters are either poorly developed or handed out to the wrong actors: Juanjo Artero just switches the automatic pilot on his TV police procedural role, and Helena Miquel may be a very good singer but is totally out of place in a "serious" film project such as this.The film's middle part is protracted to the point of boredom. It ends up leaving more things unexplained than it should care to, and eventually sacrifices whatever interest the audience might have for the characters in the altar of narrative sparsity. It does throw the barbs at institutional incompetence we would expect considering its subject matter, but the tameness with which it does betrays the overall bitterness deliberately pursued by the project. The terrorist subplot is omnipresent though not overbearing; it is, however, ostensibly calculated to give the film the extra mileage worth of "cinema vérité" bleakness and tragic tone which character development alone seemed unable to achieve. In that respect, it seems aimed at boosting the film's appeal to the audience, and as such it verges on the exploitative. From the artistic point of view, Urbizu didn't need such a cheap ancillary plot device, but I understand it will pay off for him commercially.