Money Heist – your next lockdown binge?
Dubbing puts a lot of people off in film and TV – if you’re one of these people, you’re missing out on some incredible work.
Money Heist is one such programme, originally created in Spain as La Casa de Papel (or ‘Paper House’ in English). The show is available dubbed and subtitled in various languages on Netflix, which means you have the choice of watching it spoken in English, spoken in Spanish with English subtitles, or whichever other combination you prefer.
The plot?
In season 1 (classed as parts 1 and 2 on Netflix) the show follows a team of criminals who take control of the Royal Mint of Spain, keeping hostages and printing money for as long as they can get away with. In season 2 (parts 3 and 4), the heist location changes to the Bank of Spain.
It takes a really well-written show to make you want the ‘bad guys’ to succeed, and this one does it VERY well.
The characters?
The leader of the team goes by ‘the Professor’, while the others use cities for their individual code names. Narrating the show is ‘Tokyo’, a hot-headed and unpredictable woman who has a painful experience before the Professor recruits her. The rest of the team also have emotional backstories, which all play a part in making their mission harder.
The hostages in season 1 include the factory director Arturo Román, his assistant Mónica Gaztambide, and student Alison Parker, the daughter of the British Ambassador to Spain. These three people are most important, as they are each worthy of making or breaking the heist’s outcome.
Trying to stop the team and save the hostages is the National Police Corps, lead by Inspector Raquel Murillo, who becomes romantically involved with a man named Salva who is closer to the heist than she thinks. This storyline is arguably just as dramatic as the heist itself, as Raquel nearly discovers his true identity on multiple occasions.
I have to say money heist is the best series ever on Netflix
— kamuskana kemakuhwa? (@itschydohere) June 19, 2020
Overall thoughts?
The programme is incredibly well produced, almost making you forget it’s fictional and think it’s a dramatic re-enactment of a real heist. It’s definitely a binge-worthy show, and I would recommend it to anyone, but be advised it may not be suitable for young eyes and ears – it has an 18-rating with the tag ‘threat’, and it includes a few sexual scenes and a lot of adult language.
The actors playing the criminals give them an incredible amount of emotion, in their eyes, their tone of voice and their body language. But they don’t just play them as sensitive, as we also see the brutal and cunning sides to them – you love and hate them at the same time, and it’s brilliantly done.
In short, if you’re looking for a new show to get hooked on while we can’t do a lot else at the moment, this might well be for you. You’ve been warned – it’s dangerously addictive.