A porta vermelha

... and unashamedly bad joke of a police drama.

Well, photography could have been worse - the fascinating scenario of Trieste helps though. And except for a couple of Duffy-duck-worthy performances - lead male included - actors did their jobs despite the surprisingly (given the resume of the authors) poor script.

Don't expect Lucarelli's (and Rigosi's) "Ispettore Coliandro". There we had an hilarious main character carrying the show with his comic-like cocktail of jackass comedy, action and romance (although undeniably the serious side of the stories was underwhelming). Here we have something similarly underwhelming (with drama in place of comedy) less any significant character.

How bad can the result be? You can't really imagine and I'm not going to spoil any detail for the fearless ones daring to give it a try.

Think to a police drama, but without true baddies or a hard investigation: forget procedurals' realism, pulp allure or even basic logic; take just the soapy drama, childish clues and a parade of inaccuracies and plot holes. Now add some mystical flavour because... what can be original in such a trite genre? Serial-killers, grouchy dysfunctional detectives, Holmesian complexities are so pretentious... let's have some ghosts and hereafter stuff! Save costs and headaches with a TV-ish basic direction; put some teens in as well to cater to a wider audience. Flavour with superficial, paternalistic and religious rambling all over (but very politically correct); a B-movie gloomy palette and scenery and... hours and hours of teardrop-filled simplistic drama.

Et voilà!

Why should we expect something good from an Italian TV-series with a nice budget and a someway popular Giallo writer as a creator? Because in the last 5 years there have been at least 20-30 other big police drama/detective story international productions well worth a watch. And it's not like all of these had a great plot, cleverly designed characters and clues and all the perfect ingredients of a masterpiece: but at least they were brilliant somewhere. It baffles me how can people not learn a thing with so many good examples around... But hey, you know Italian TV audience demographics: old people, low to basic education. For this target "La porta rossa" is indeed ready for success: why bothering with anything deeper than a puddle?

The movie story was interesting, but the directing and playing and paying attention to the details was so awful,For example, the shadow of the soul was seeable on other players. has the soul a shadow?Or the police chief took his son's pills with his fingers without a glove, but he put them in the bag of the dead girl by glove.Or it was told in the restaurant to Piras that smoking is forbidden here, but there was an ashtray on the restaurant desk and piras turned off the cigar in it.In the whole without paying attention to the details, a beautiful film turned into an awkward effect.

This story takes so many twists and turns you can get disoriented. The actors are good and it held our interest. There were details not tightly done but not so many to ruin it.

I thought I would hate this but each of the characters are both good and bad. I loved the women. All of them. When does that happen.

I nearly didn't try this series because the supernatural element put me off, but in fact it was so easy to suspend disbelief because it was all so well done. This was a most enjoyable series, with a complex and involving storyline and well-rounded characters The general level of acting was superb, with several very memorable characters and I found many moments genuinely moving. It held my attention throughout all three series. I was very surprised to read a couple of very negative reviews here and can only think that the people who wrote them stopped watching early on: after all, nobody rating a programme that poorly would bother watching three series of it! I am going to miss La Porta Rossa and can really recommend it.