LLuca Zingaretti change skin and then reassuring Montalbano wears the shoes of the controversial Bruno Testorivery bad prison director of the series The king (from tonight on Sky at 21.20 and streaming on NOW). So wicked the Roman actor we had never seen it.
You know the cult director Samuel Norton The wings of Freedom (among other things among Zingaretti’s favorite films)? Here, we are over there. The king of the title is obviously Testori, the unscrupulous manager of his Kingdom (the prison) that stands up rules that have nothing to do with justice: Testori gives personal codes far from the law between prisoners and agents.
The king: the previews of the first two episodes
Bruno Testori (Zingaretti) leads his life in the prison of San Micheal. Out of that world it has remained there daughter Adelesuffering from a sick woman, and his ex-wife Glory (Barbora Bobulova), the only two presences that bring him closer to a human being like many others. In front of them, his negative charge dissolves.
In prison it is instead a unscrupulous man that dictates rules and rights at will. One day he is found dead at San Michele, after a flight of several meters, the friend (the only one who has) and commander of the prison officers Nicola (Giorgio Colangeli).
Who killed him? Bruno tries in every way to find out who the killer is before the PM Laura Lombardo (Anna Bonaiuto), who investigates the case. She obviously she has a lot of skeletons in the closet to keep hidden. State justice clashes with Testori’s justice. Who will escape it?
Luca Zingaretti in a scene from “Il re” (Sky).
Prison drama and thriller
An internal investigation begins, the prison drama takes on a thriller streak. The prosecutor begins to question the agents including Sonia Massini (Isabella Ragonese), the only female officer and always critical of Testori’s methods, but aware of their effectiveness. Will she be the weak link in the chorus of people under the conductor’s dome?
Luca Zingaretti with his wife Luisa Ranieri at the première of “Il re”. (Getty Images)
Meanwhile, in less than 48 hours another is found diedthis time hanged. It is about Miroslav Lackovic (Ivan Franek), a Serbian inmate sentenced to life imprisonment he ran drug trafficking in prison (with the consent of the director of course). Was it he who killed Nicola? It would seem so, plus it turns out that Lackovic he is a Muslim, and even Bruno did not know it. Maybe someone wants to make that castle that has been built over time collapse on him.
Was Lackovic killed or did he kill himself? The case deepens, while at San Michele the earthquake breaks out among the inmates and the PM is increasingly convinced that Testori is hiding something big: she also knows that when a prisoner creates trouble always ends at San Michele because Bruno is able to keep the most complicated subjects good.
Luca Zingaretti with family. (Getty Images)
Luca Zingaretti and the Montalbano effect
We lacked a prison drama in Italian series and the director Giuseppe Gagliardi (1992), together with the writers, manage to keep the genre together with the real context of Italian prisons. For example in the next episodes attention will also be focused on Muslim detainees and on the area Islamic inside the prison.
An approach that draws on the real world. As for Bruno Testori Zingaretti speaks of a kind of colonel Kurtz (Of Apocalypse Now) which at a certain point loses its compass and becomes an explosive mine.
The king intrigues us, makes us want to understand to what extent Testori it will push. If the first episode starts with the handbrake on to introduce us the context and the chorus of characters, in the second the surprises are not lacking. And it’s just when what you don’t expect happens to make you want to see the next episode.
Luca Zingaretti and Ivan Franek. (Sky).
We like Zingaretti also immersed in this gloomy realitywithout the sun and the cannoli of Sicily.
Sometimes, however, when Bruno begins to investigate his friend’s murder case it almost seems like hear Montalbano who gives commands to colleagues. A game of fate that makes the director not so despicable. But it will be the effect nostalgia or the déjà vu of the first episodes? One thing is certain: to fully understand the spirit and the character de The king must be seen to the end.
iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED