Paco Plaza and Luis Tosar joined in this story of secrets, murderers and revenge, with an end that is not forgotten, which today comes to Netflix Spain.
Who has iron kills is one of those thrillers that went unfairly unnoticed at its premiere. Yes, he won a Goya for Best New Actor for Enric Auquer, an actor who is now one of the highlights of Sky Rojo, but little else, especially if we talk about a film starring Luis Tosar and directed by Paco Plaza.
But the word of mouth of the film starring the actor from Cell 221 and I give you my eyes and the director of Rec and Verónica, has been growing little by little. The reason is actually simple. It is one of the most shocking thrillers in Spanish cinema in recent years, a tale of gangsters, revenge, loss and secrets that has just reached Netflix, the step that could give it the place of popularity it deserved from the beginning.
At first, it seems that He who kills iron tells two separate stories. On the one hand, there is a mafia boss, Antonio Padín, and his two sons, Kike and Toño. The first falls ill and ends up in an asylum, a moment of weakness that the father’s rivals take advantage of to corner some children who soon lose family control and need the financial support of a father, at times cruel, at times gone. Luis Tosar plays the most beloved nurse in the nursing home, Mario, the first to receive pressure from his children to manipulate his father and find his support. Mario, and his pregnant wife, will be the casual victims of threats from this group of criminals. Everything could be like this but the key to the film, in addition to the saying that completes its title, is that Mario seems to have a secret.
From here, dear readers, come SPOILERS
Who kills iron takes risks from his own title, because he is one of those who advances the end. Of course, more than a spoiler helps to understand the reading of the outcome of the story. Of course, Mario had something to hide, a revenge against Antonio Padín for having been the culprit of the drug addiction that killed his brother through an overdose. A strange reason to end up with a mafia boss but more than interesting considering the drug problem in Spain in the 80s and 90s, the profession of the protagonist hero and, above all, the place where the action takes place, the Galicia that we all knew with Fariña.
But, and we return to the title, Who kills iron … Dies iron. The overdose is the method used by the main nurse to end Padín’s life, but that alone is the trigger for a series of bloody events that leaves him in shock. Before ending his life, Mario explains to Padín the reason for his revenge. He after he is forced to flee from Toño, the eldest son. The mistake seems fatal until a car accident kills Toño and destroys the evidence of Mario’s murder. Everything seems to have worked out, but let’s not forget the title. Padín had time to make a call before he died, one in which he left all the messages from him to Mario’s newborn son. From the outside, it is a nice gesture to the nurse who took care of him in his last days, from the inside, it is a death sentence for Mario and his family.
Surrounded by debts and shortly before being stabbed to death in jail, Kike has time to order the death of the wife of a Mario who cannot renounce the will as it is not in her name but in her son’s name. . We said that He who kills iron fulfills what his title promises, but the truth is that he makes a small trap to which the end has to be very grateful. Padín, Kike and Toño, the killers in the film, end up dead, of course, but not Mario. After killing Padín, he ends up with an even worse punishment, watching her baby continue to suck on her father’s breast while she lies dead in the calm position in which she was. An overwhelming image with which the film closes abruptly, the final gong of the tragic symphony that has been woven during the 107 minutes that the film lasts.
