After that highly recommended series that is Hierro (2019-2021), the screenwriters Pepe Coira and Fran Araújo return to Movistar Plus with another criminal mystery in a small town, à la Broadchurch (2013-2017 ), with Rapa (since 2022). But they go to the other end of the country, from the Canary Islands to Galicia. And they repeat the formula of placing two different characters before the investigations, a literature professor and a civil guard, the Tomás and Maite embodied by Javier Cámara and Mónica López.
Its concept is not like Agatha Christie, with whom the identity of the murderer always comes as a surprise, but it is somewhat closer to the dynamics of Patricia Highsmith or Colombo (1971-2003) and, on the other hand, what The important thing is to discover the reasons for the homicidal behavior. Offering, incidentally, a social fresco in which opposing motivations lead to greater dramatic complexity. And manages to catch us enough so that we want to get answers.
Closing out each episode with a reveal or a twist and thus a hook makes sure we don't want to get off the Rapa bandwagon last. Likewise, from its first bars, the audiovisual care that is spent is difficult to argue with, with suggestive and detailed close-ups, the atmospheric soundtrack by Xavi Font and the exquisite montage by eight hands which includes almost hypnotic slow-motion compositions at critical moments.
Less charisma, the same good audiovisual manners
Movistar Plus He is exemplary in his narrative manners; It captures our attention without manipulating us. But the set does not achieve the brilliance of Hierro. In part, due to the less eloquence of their dialogues and, also, because the charisma of the two leading characters, Tomás by Javier Cámara and Maite by Mónica López, is shown inferior to those of Antonio Díaz by Darío Grandinetti and Candela Montes by ídem Peña in the Canarian thriller. From the writing of Pepe Coira and Fran Araújo, it would seem.
His presence is appreciated beyond all doubt, regardless of the claim to fame of the first since the series Siete Vidas (1999-2006). Like that of the imposing Berta Ojea, born in La Coruña. And some twist, filled with a whimsical but entirely plausible coincidence, reminds us of the impressive ending of The Oath, the second adaptation of the homonymous novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, made by actor Sean Penn (2001), after the film The Bait, by Ladislaus Vajda (1958).
The directors Jorge Coira and Elena Trapé have been in charge of three episodes each. He is also responsible for films such as Eighteen Foods (2010) and The Emperor Code (2022), and she is responsible for Blog (2010) and Distances (2018); one has made other chapters of I know who you are (2017), for example, and the other, of HIT (since 2020). And both of them compose several parallel montages with dramatic intensity and high closings so that we continue with Javier Cámara and Mónica López.
'Rapa' It does not amaze us, but it earns our respect
Movistar Plus However, mediated Rapa, it seems to us that its main problem is that, based on certain clues, it gives one the feeling that the causes of the murder and the characters involved are already smelled. And, although the second is so, then he realizes that he has been too smart. But, perhaps, it is not something that harms. Instead of just surprising the viewer, it pokes him in his pride, a very different experience from what we are used to in narrative.
What does force the hinges of credibility a bit are certain communication difficulties between the protagonists, in the manner of the episode “Colony” (2×16) of The X-Files (since 1993) and with the same intention: to generate danger and concern . But, in the very decent set of fiction by Pepe Coira and Fran Araújo, it does not affect much; and the game of cat and mouse that it turns into in the end, however, satisfies us and reminds us that making an effort like this, without dazzling, is enough to earn our respect .
