The petty criminals have grown up

It has been difficult, but it seems that a certain consensus has been reached in considering that the so-called delinquency cinema It is one of the most reliable references for examining where Spain stood during the transition. That stark decline of the noir genre, narrated almost entirely in the first person by juvenile delinquents who blurred the lines between themselves and the alter ego that they embodied on screen, is the point of reference of Blows, the first feature film directed by Rafael Cobos, a regular screenwriter for Alberto Rodríguez.

Aware that emulating the circumstances of titles like The peak either Stray dogs It's impossible, Cobos presents the film as a spiritual sequel to the subgenre, in which the criminals have grown up and no longer nihilistically flee forward. In fact, Migueli's (Jesús Carroza) main concern upon his release from prison is settling scores with a past marked by the Francoist dictatorship; unlike his policeman brother (Luis Tosar), who prefers to leave things buried.

The moral contrast between the two figures on opposite sides of the law is significant, and it intensifies the cat-and-mouse game between the protagonists, which the narrative follows with the conviction that comes from knowing it's hitting tried-and-tested notes. However, it's a shame that this predictability ends up overshadowing the hints of singularity the film could have had, ultimately concentrated in the electronic soundtrack composed by Bronquio.