La Casa de Papel

Genre: Thriller.
Cast: Úrsula Corberó, Paco Tous, Alba Flores.
Netflix’s Spanish heist thriller ‘La Casa de Papel’ is a daring, shameless and entertaining series.
As the English title suggests already (‘Money Heist’), the story is about money and thieves. The show incorporates all the classic elements of heist films – fake names , scary masks and a very complex strategy that includes using the police’s own playbook against them. It follows a gang of thieves as they organize and execute the theft of the century: entering the Royal Mint of Spain and stealing billions of euros. Or to put it correctly, print billions of euros for the taking.
We are guided through this experience by Tokio (Úrsula Corberó), a young woman who is on the run and mourning the death of her boyfriend – her partner in crime -, who finds herself sucked into this situation when she has nowhere else to go. A mysterious man known only as The Professor approaches her, promising redemption and one big heist that would be enough to set her up for life. She is introduced to seven other like-minded individuals, each with their own eccentricities.
Over the course of the first season’s 13 episodes, we get to know each of the eight members of the team very intimately: from what got them to that situation to what their aspirations might be after the robbery is completed. The script feels original and fresh, offering character development and plot twists in areas one might never have anticipated.
The characters are extremely well-made, complex and above all, believable: from a father and son trying to escape a drug lord’s wrath, a young woman fighting for a chance to get together with her family or a powerful woman officer trying to solve the crime as the world judges her and her personal life falls apart.
The use of flashbacks between the heist and them planning it out really adds tension to each episode. But, as the program proceeds, the plot takes all sorts of very interesting twists and turns and we become intensely immersed in the relationships between the criminals, the hostages, and the police officers and negotiators involved in the siege.
> Mar Martínez