“Iron Reign” Review: Netflix presents a crime thriller and an episodic Spanish series “Iron Reign”. The story happens in a ship port at Barcelona which is controlled by Joaquin Manchado and his family. A lot of consignments pass through this port every day. Joaquin Manchado with his family and friends uses their power to smuggle the drugs that come to the port outside.
They get a commission for this illegal passage of drugs. A series of events happens related to a consignment and Joaquin Manchado which changes the whole situation happening in their family and the port.
This series is a Netflix original series created by Lluís Quílez. Lluís Quílez is a writer and a director who did many movies. Lluís Quílez is known for Graffiti (2015), 72% (2017) and Avatar (2005) as director. In this series, he did a great job making it more thrilling and engaging to the viewers. He utilized the actor’s potential to make the story more real and convincing. He did many background works to make the port works more detailed for the viewers.
The series has about eight episodes with about an average of 1-hour runtime per episode. The first two episodes were just an introduction to the story. Those episodes moved very slowly, but after the third episode, everything changed. The episode went to a thrilling mode. The series had many good moments, many thrilling moments, some dull moments too. The series is A-rated so there are some intimate scenes too.
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The main plus of the series is the cast’s performances. Chino Darín who acted as the Victor and Eduard Fernández who acted as Joaquin Manchado did their best in the series. Other actors also showed their true potential in this series. Another actor is Jaime Lorente who acted as Nestor who is a well-known actor which we all know from the Elite and Money Heist series.
The series had dark-tone visuals the whole time. The creator used a dark tone to portray the crime and underground drug trades in a more suited way. The series is shot in Barcelona mostly. The casts and the locations are very minimal. Netflix provided a good budget to make this series which we can see from the production value.
The cinematographer did a very fine job, also the background scores were good. Background scores lifted some dull moments into a good thrilling watch. The series had many action and gun sequences which were shot very well. Especially the fight in jail of Victor with other prisoners was done at best. The series used more close-up shots than long shots. Netflix produced this series in around 5 million US dollars.
The drug crime series from Spain is not new, they released every type of drug mafia-related series before. Even Netflix released many drug mafia-related series on streaming including Narcos, Narcos Mexico, Cocaine Coast etc.
But what makes this series different from other crime series is this series happens in a shipment port. The smuggling through a port and it is controlled by a family is something different. Apart from that they don’t have any uniqueness.
The police going undercover in a drug mafia group and then getting in trouble, the mafia boss and his family trying to fight in his absence and all is not a new story these days. We have seen many types of series like this. Netflix released this as just another drug cartel crime series not more or less. The thrilling scenes are good but we have seen this plot many times so not everyone likes a repeatation.
For me, i felt like it was just another Netflix crime drama with nothing new to offer. Just the old usual plot and narration. But the making was good and the actors. If you like this kind of plot and you are not eager for some surprises to happen this series is a good watch for you. There are good moments for you. For me it was an average watching experience.
I rate 2 out of 5 for this Spanish crime thriller series ‘Iron Reign’.