Io ti cercherò

As a longtime fan of detective mysteries, I struggle these days to find series that can engage me for six or eight episodes. For example, the MHZ channel is chock full of shows, but many of them are too slapstick or silly to hold my interest. Redemption (Io ti cerchero') with its leads Allesandro Gassman and Maya Sansa did hold my interest. I found it on the PBS Masterpiece Channel in the US. While I gave it a 7, it is fractionally better than that.

Even though Gassman plays a character (Valerio) quite similar to the one he plays on I Bastardi di Pizzofalcone, I find his larger-than-life persona impossible not to like. And the striking Maya Sansa lights up the screen, playing a strong but troubled ex-love of Valerio, and a police officer herself.

Sometimes when a series has many flashbacks, it is distracting and slows down the action. In this case, the flashbacks worked, because Redemption is simultaneously working on two parallel tracks: It is a search for a killer, and it is a meditation on the relationship between fathers and sons. Valerio's son's narration during the story added a poetry and a spiritual dimension to the show. While the plot is not always as tight as it might be, and while some of Valerio's actions defy common sense, Redemption is ultimately a compelling, touching drama in which one cares about its characters.

If you don't mind constant time switches between now and then, and if you can tolerate a loose cannon character (you don't have to and won't like him) it moves along well enough with many plot holes, of which the biggest one is no motive is ever given for the killing of the son. I guessed the bad guy on the inside simply because they never showed any other possibilities.

Oh, and I am so tired of them figuring out a password by looking at the posters on the wall.

I'm also curious as to whether there are so many white kids in Rome wearing Rasta hair?

As usual the bad guys never know how to shoot straight.

This is an Italian Telenovela, replete with all the trademarks of the usual RAI production. There's a lot of crying, shouting, slapping, and screaming in the faces of others, close enough for one to see "spit spray"! The acting is overdone in many cases and the lead actor's teeth are a real distraction. The script is meant to be a journey of redemption, but the themes becomes so overused, it eventually becomes tiresome. Some of the scenes and events just do not connect well. This leads to problems with story continuity. The constantly shifting timelines also do not help. There is too much of a political/moral agenda being pushed throughout the Telenovela.....it's not really a series!

The most common downside to RAI series is that they construct the plots with too much of a consideration for trending instances to political correctness. So much that, you get to understand from the start how good a minority/immigrant character will turn out to be, and to the representative of which profile the fingers will be pointed at in the end.

This much of "identity politics" is a bit too much for my taste in fiction as it dramatically reduces the element of a surprise and the merit of getting to meet with characters who are more "individual" than mere representatives of whatever group they belong with.

"Io ti cercherò" suffered from these patterns that RAI Fiction lean too much on, but still, it was quite an enjoyable ride as the banks of the River Tevere and the personal stories of the cops and their families really did give an authentic feeling.

A father searching for the answers behind the unexpected death of a son is always a source for strong emotions, and the acting was fine, so was the soundtrack, the pace, etc.

Looking back at this (I saw it on RAI as it aired freshly, almost a year ago) I can recall notable moments and details, all communicated professionally, making sharp political, dramatical and ethical points. Just for comparison - this was much, much better than "I bastardi di Pizzofalcone 2" which starred the same lead, Alessandro Gassman, again as a cop. This one made sense whereas the flaws with Pizzofalcone weighed over its merits.

What keeps bothering me the most with "Io ti cercherò", and probably what dropped my score from a potential 7 to this 6, is the excessive usage of cigarette smoke as a plastic element for mood-building.

Okay, most people do smoke, and a cop with multiple questions on mind would sure smoke more than others... But, come on... So many of the show's notable scenes of conversation were so terribly soaked in smoke that, to this date, I can still recall beginning to smell smoke around me as I watched them.

Do producers not understand how the viewers' brain works? There is a good reason to why mainstream TV almost never involves scenes of sewers loaded with you-know-what. It's simply because the sight of disgusting stuff triggers the brain and brings with the reaction that same stuff would create in real life.

When you fill long key scenes with cigarette smoke, which you probably think adds value to the plastics and the mood, you get to gain an adverse reaction. Mostly from non-smokers, yeah, but at times even from smokers.

Cop shows of RAI tend towards being quite formulaic (with the exception of the one and only Montalbano, for sure!) but still they are watchable. And this one could be even more watchable if they had cared to replace smoke with some other, preferably more creative element for mood-building.