There are times when you’re watching a show and you know that, chances are, the massive cast introduced in the first episode isn’t going to work out well. Some characters will get some depth and backstory, but most of the others will be pretty interchangeable. That’s the feeling we get with a new Italian historical drama on Netflix.
BRIGANTES: THE QUEST FOR GOLD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: A map of Sicily and southern Italy. “KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES. YEAR 1860.” A voice says: “People say my land is poor. That is sunburned. Which is cursed. But that’s not true. My land is rich. That’s why there is always someone there to loot it.”
The essence: Those are the words of Giuseppe Schiavone (Marlon Joubert) about Palermo. Schiavone fought for the red shirts during the battles that ultimately led to the reunification of Italy, only to see the leaders take all the gold from the Palermo bank to pay for the war, leaving death and destruction behind. The gold is buried somewhere on the continent and the map to find it has also disappeared.
Two years later, Schiavone is now a famous bounty hunter named Sparrowhawk. He takes a capture to the city of Basilicata, in central Italy, because he knows that a landowner named Clemente Degli Orti (Gianni Vastarella) has the map.
In fact, Don Clemente has that map and is conspiring with a military leader named Fumel (Pietro Micci) to find the gold. Fumel is worried about bandits, bands of bandits who attack from hidden positions in the forest. Clemente says that is a myth, proposed by someone who also says that a woman will liberate the South. Clemente’s wife, Filomena de Marco (Michela De Rossi), knows that Fumel’s plan to recruit soldiers from the poor families he used to be a part of makes no sense, but Clemente is very dismissive of his views.
She promises to help a friend from her town by getting her medicine for her son and some drinking water, but when the friend arrives in the middle of the night to fulfill what Filomena promised, Clemente finds them and shoots the woman dead. He tells Filomena that she is ungrateful for what he did to her to get her out of poverty and throws her into the well. She manages to get out of it and, when Clemente discovers that she survived her fall, she turns around and stabs him in the neck. At the same time, Sparrowhawk is at Clemente’s compound looking for the map and is arrested.
Filomena manages to escape, but is found by the Mónacos, a family of bandits. They hope she can bring a ransom, as they need money to help break the father of the group’s leader, Pietro (Orlando Cinque), from prison. Once they find out who is hers, María “Ciccilla” Oliverio (Ivana Lotito), one of the fiercest bandits in the group, is ready to kill her. But Filomena saves herself by telling them that she can get them the money they need. They then return to Clemente’s property, where she gives them the contents of her now deceased husband’s safe and keeps the map.
Meanwhile, Fumel searches for Filomena and recruits the now captured Gavilán to find her. He accepts the job to avoid the death penalty, but insists that he be sent with the other prisoners (including the man he captured) to that deadly prison, because he has his own plan.
What shows will it remind you of? Bandits: the search for gold It has a similar vibe to the Korean series. Song of the bandits.
Our opinion: There is a lot to follow Bandits: the search for gold (original title: Briganti); There are at least two teams of bandits, the inhabitants of the town where Filomena is from, as well as Fumel and his Piedmontese soldiers. There is also Michelina Di Cesare (Matilda Lutz), whom Filomena seeks out after killing Don Clemente. While the first episode does a good job of setting up this quest for the gold that rightfully belongs to Palermo, we wonder how well the rest of the limited series will keep track of everyone.
Michela De Rossi, who plays Filomena, will undoubtedly be the focal point of this series. She shows the Monacos that she can be useful to them and eventually helps them team up with Sparrowhawk and his group to find the gold and defeat Fumel. Her character is the most compelling of what is for the most part a generic group of bandits.
As the adventure progresses, we can see Gavilán, Filomena, Ciccilla and Fumel being the characters that develop the most. Still, the characters aren’t much more than sketches at this point. And with such an extensive story, we’re not sure how deep we’ll see even those four characters go.
That said, the scenery (at least in the daytime scenes, since the nighttime ones were extraordinarily difficult to see) is spectacular, and the setting reinforces the idea that the “Wild West” ethos of the second half of the 19th century was No. It is limited only to North America.
Sex and skin: Apart from Filomena getting into the bathtub after getting out of the well, there is nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Filomena returns to the Monaco camp. Pietro is impressed enough to say “Welcome to the Monaco family”, then Ciccilla hits Filomena with the butt of her shotgun.
Sleeping star: Ivana Lotito’s Ciccilla is the wild card of the Monaco family and will probably be the one with the most backstory.
Most pilot line: Sparrowhawk tries to escape while his mugshot is taken (for which, being 1862, he has to stay very still), but when he is finally subdued, his bloody face is photographed at gunpoint. He is holding his mask in the photo.
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. We’re just not sure if Bandits: the search for gold It will hold up under the weight of its enormous cast. But what we’ve seen so far effectively establishes who the players are in this story.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and other places.
