HBO premiered this Friday 'C. B. Strike ', the seven-episode miniseries in which the novels published by J. K. Rowling are adapted under a pseudonym, which narrates the adventures of a war veteran reconverted into a private detective in London.
To stand out as a private detective in London is not easy. The bar, in the series, is very high. But Cormoran Blue Strike makes a more than worthy hole by adjusting to the professional profile of the old school without any extraordinary ability beyond his military police training, his ability and tenacity to follow the bread crumbs left by the culprits and the possibility of reaching where the police, subject to the rules, can not. Strike is more like Humphrey Bogart's Samuel Spade in The Maltese Falcon than Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes. Something that feels great to the character and the series. The result is a very entertaining fiction with large doses of action that moves within the standards of the genre. It also has that extra quality that the BBC and HBO labels and the British acting school usually provide.
Cormoran Strike was released in novel format in 2013 as a character created by Robert Galbraith, a pseudonym under which J. K. Rowling hid to make it known without anyone relating it to her, the creator of the magical universe of Harry Potter. The adaptation project was born as a mini-series for HBO, but during the production it was concluded that it fit better with the type of content more entertainment and action that was wanted to enhance Cinemax, channel owned by the American giant, and was chosen , with success, for the change of header.
Once located, the detective with office in Denmark Street jumped to the screen last summer on the BBC -Cinemax will premiere on June 1 and May 18 did HBO Spain- adopting the form of Tom Burke, who was Athos in The musketeers of the BBC and Fedya Dolokhov in the miniseries War and Peace. A recurring actor in the British television productions that on this occasion gets into the skin of a war veteran who lost half a leg in Afghanistan and who needs an adventurous companion to be able to solve the cases that are presented to him. And that's where Robin Ellacott (Holliday Grainger) comes into play, who since her first meeting shows that she aspires to be something more than a secretary.
In the contrast between them and how their relationship is being built, a great part of the interest and good functioning of the series resides. He drinks pints and thirds as if they were bottles of water, throws the matches on the floor, urinates in a glass and skips the law at will. This is Cormoran Blue Strike, a London detective who compensates for his shortcomings (the righteous ones to make him interesting without generating rejection he said in a British criticism) and his handicaps (he can not catch a suspect in the race or drive) with much charisma and gift of people when it interests you. Son of a model who committed suicide and of a musician of scattered life, sometimes seems more a rock star fallen in disgrace than a detective, with his doses of carnaza for the press and his groupies.
On the other side, like the other half that makes this adaptation work, Robin, a "decent person", as described by her in principle boss on one occasion. She leads a quiet life, is engaged to her lifelong boyfriend and enjoys an affable character. Although beneath its candid appearance hides a promising talent for the profession and personality of someone who does not like to be told what he can not do. And less if the impediments are put for being a woman. She does not need anyone to take care of her or any special treatment. She alone knows how to get in trouble and get out of them. That's why Strike likes him so well and that's why they understand each other from the first moment. He does not look for a secretary or an assistant, but a "partner".
A couple with chemistry that would be nothing but was wrapped in a balanced script that sows the seed of curiosity and builds around it a universe of falsehoods, violence and sordidness that grows in intensity with each chapter in a magnetic London that always remains well on screen. The game that arises C. B. Strike is the crime classic to solve, with clues to follow and a considerable list of suspects to be crossed out as the investigation progresses. A who is who is easy to enter and who is splattered with dreams and travels to the past to get to know the detective a little more, whose profile does not finish drawing until the last of the seven chapters that are already available on HBO. Instead of overwhelming the viewer by offering each and every one of the details of his injured biography in the pilot, the information is dosed generating a certain need to know a little more and dig into his past to find the reasons why he does this or that or the explanation to certain reactions. And the same with Robin, although in her it deepens less. He has his traumas from the past, but they are less.
Something that there is not in C. B. Strike are boasts of ingenuity or intelligence, but a work of investigation door to door and of discarding of tracks until arriving at the good one. In the inkwell, three deaths to be clarified - one per published novel - which, of course, will not be what they seem at first: that of a model, that of a novel writer and that of a young woman. The formula used by C. B. Strike is based on offering a fun product in which there is action to keep the viewer entertained by also raising many questions about the two main characters and those that revolve around them. After the camera, three different directors. One for each part. Michael Keillor is responsible for the three episodes that make up the song of the cuckoo; Kieron Hawkes of the two from The Silkworm; and Charles Sturridge of the two from The Office of Evil. All of one hour and available from Friday May 18 on HBO Spain.