O Candidato

With a slightly shaky cam, a monotonous thumping techno score and some of the best performances of this year, we are introduced to a group of Spanish politicians with a serious fraudulent past. Their arrogance and naive feeling of invincibility is soon destroyed, when all their corrupt businesses are slowly brought to the attention of the press.

The gravity of the situation only hits the audience when it hits the characters: too late. In over their head with only a couple of options to save their own skin, they are put before several moral questions that will have you bite your finger nails the whole ride.

Manuel, the main character, seems a true human being that could have walked out of a real life politics debate for all we know. Antonio de la Torre's performance is out of this world! But not only he deserves credit for his amazing acting. No one ever misses a note and the result is a film full of conflicting personal relationships that are realistic in a rather scary way.

The music is a bit of a bummer though... The techno-beats never build up towards a finale, while the movie itself is a thrilling rollercoaster that ends in a frontal collision with a brick wall. This - as I already mentioned - monotonous score doesn't improve the movie one bit.

But the directing by Rodrigo Sorogoyen is compelling. He made a political scandal into a grand fight between rivals and friends. There is no violence. But I held my breath for the complete final hour. The ending was a bit too suden for my taste though.

Yet, I cannot stress this enough: it was rousing, it was absolutely riveting.

I went to see this wonderful movie with a minimum of information, as usual: a Spanish movie directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, with Antonio de la Torre. Nothing more. De facto, with a very positive a priori. During the first minutes, the atmosphere is a Dolce vita full of show-offs, with yachts, rolex, penthouses, prawns orgies and tutti quanti, in a universe of corrupt politicians. A scandal burgeons and one of them will immediately be designed for a sacrifice, in order to preserve the party and the government. Thus, in this extemporary exercise of musical chairs, the victim is Manuel López-Vidal, the main protagonist interpreted by Antonio de la Torre. The movie is quickly and suddenly transformed into a descent into the abyss, or rather a breathless race against the clock until an ultimate and terrific confrontation that might easily be considered as a merciless fight between the two last gladiators still standing within a Roman arena, with a combativeness boosted to the extreme, for the delight of a bloodthirsty audience.

The film deals with corruption through the eyes of a man for whom one feels almost empathy, despite the absence of sympathy. Thus, if this film addresses corruption without really judging it, the focus is primarily on the ability to survive, like manifold other movies, in fundamentally different contexts: Ayka (2018), Gravidade (2013), A Estrada (2009), Extermínio (2002), Amargo Pesadelo (1972), ... Thus, with El reino / The Realm, we may see what a corrupt politicien is ready to do to save his own skin. No matter what! As a conclusion, despite a few idle times, this movie is excellent.

''El Reino'' is a political thriller from Spain, directed by the talented Rodrigo Sorogoyen who also gave us the brilliant ''Que Dios nos perdone'', one of the best European thrillers of the decade. In this movie though he doesn't achieve the top level of his previous work. The film's protagonist, Manuel, -an exceptional performance once again by Antonio de la Torre- strives in order to stay alive in the country's political scene after being accused for a major scandal involving embezzlement and money laundering. The frenetic tempo of the first 45 minutes confused me and made me lost count of the names and ranks of the various characters which were introduced, but after Manuel's indictment the movie starts to feel more comprehensible and the story more concise. The editing is super-fast and even the soundtrack adds to the movie's rapid pace. We follow Mauel, who is present in nearly every single scene of the movie, witnessing his attempts to save himself as well as to extract revenge from the people who think that deceived him and made him a scapegoat. The last ten minutes, Manuel's tv interview, conclude the film in the best possible way with the journalist's final question remaining hanging for the viewer to think and dwell on. The picture of the Spanish political life in ''El Reino'' is not a flattering one as the high-ranking politicians are depicted as cruel, profiteering gangsters who enjoy luxurious lives at the expense of Spanish people who prefer to ignore the country's totally unreliable political system as they have to deal with the problems in their everyday lives which are caused by the nation's governments. There are points in the movie that offer food for thought and many viewers, especially those who live in Europe's southern countries, will recognize many of the depicted blemishes as their own. I would definitely give the movie a higher rating if it were not for the confusion of the first half which has a rather bewildering effect to the viewer because of the reasons I stated above. Overall, I believe that ''El Reino'' is a film worthy of recommendation despite its flaws, and it will appeal most to the fans of Spanish crime/thriller films as well as to those who enjoy political thrillers.

I really liked this movie. From the start tension is building up all the way to great finale on television show. Soundtrack is excellent and helps with building tension up. Acting is superb expecially main character Manuel. Plot is interesting but maybe sometimes hard to follow because there is lots of characters. Pacing of the movie is in my opinion not very well because in some parts lots of things are happening and in some parts it fells like notging important is going on. Movie would really benefit in being just a little shorter, maybe 10 minutes or so. All in all really enjoyable movie with interesting plot and I recommend it to all people.

This is without a doubt the best Spanish movie I have seen in years (and I'm Spanish). It depicts the politician corruption in an excellent way. For me, the script was really really good, the directing was 100% on point and the performances were amazing. There is an actor called Luis Zahera who I didn't even know and it gives the most credible performance in the movie (as Cabrera). He is soooooooo good. The scene at the balcony should grant him all the awards he can get in his category this year. You cannot go better than that. Impossible. Definitely a must-watch film. Go to the theater and support the crew. This is as cinema at its best.