Carlo & Malik

This show has a decent plot and actors and I am enjoying it. Glaring is the portrayal of overt racism against the cop Malik...every 10 minutes someone either refuses to believe he is policeman, and asks for a "real cop", girls run up to "see the black cop" and then run away, people don't believe his partner would ever agree to have a black partner...it just goes on and on....like watching something out of the '60s. Is it really that bad in Italy? Wow. depressing. And of course, they have to keep repeating that he was way at the top of his detective class...as that seems the only way he would get a job like this...yikes.

Nothing frantic, sans car chases (if Luc Bresson did this series, the adrenaline would be higher). The pace of this show seems more life like than most North American 'cop' shows of a similar ilk. The actors are very watchable, the show does scratch are the underling racism Europe - most particularly I think this part (Italy, France, Germany) are suffering from. I very much like that this show doesn't use the glamorous European locations they could, instead, we see the graffiti laden buildings, the squalor of the immigrant sections. In North America this show would probably never get made, guns aren't pulled and shot a few times an episode, the pace - IS SLOW. A nice change of pace. I am 2/3 thru season one, I don't know if there are other seasons.

Is racism that archaic in Italy? Goodness, I hope not. Maybe it's just the translation? Well, barring that wretched part, it's a pretty good cop show.

I am usually into Scandinavian and British crime series, but from time to time, for widening my horizon, I try to keep up with related productions from other countries. Nero a metà included no performer known to me and the focus was more on colleague relations than on solving crimes, but it was somehow pleasant, seemed realistic (features of Italians still on the surface though). The "racism issue" did not distract me at all.

True, the creators have evidently watched BBC Crime and not all cases were of even interest, but unless you think that only e.g. Bron/Broen and The Millennium series are worth watching, the series in question can be well recommended. At least, Rome seems a more realistic crime scene than a small English village...

PS Season 2 was somewhat more protracted, the disbalance of the "main crime" and other crime episodes bigger, personal feelings of the main characters too confusing -- so 7.5 points meaning still 8. And I have plans to watch Season 3.

This my first time writing a review. It's a good crime show with a concept of a racial issue in Italy but it has little bit of everything so give it chance.