‘The skin of the drum’: spies from the Vatican

Despite his long career and recognized as one of the best contemporary authors in the Spanish language, The truth is that Arturo Pérez-Reverte, a member of the Royal Spanish Academy since 2003, hasn’t had much luck with the film adaptations of his works. Despite laudable attempts such as those of Agustín Díaz Yanes with ‘Oro’ or Imanol Uribe with ‘La carta esfera’, there have been very few versions for the big screen that they have managed to convince, it is time to return to 1992 with ‘El maestro di fencing’. Hence, the first of “The skin of the drum”, which adapts the 1995 novel of the same name and is considered one of his most emblematic novels outside the saga “The Adventures of Captain Alatriste”.

While having the express consent of the same writer,The tape never ceases to convey the feeling of being a pilot episode of a series. Also, his opening credits are made this way It seems that, at any moment, the logo of a television network or a streaming platform appears. That is also true the film tries to be as faithful as possible to the original novel and this is where the film falls, because it is its script where it falters the mostdespite being signed by eight characters, including the director of the film himself, the Colombian Sergio Dow, who makes his debut in fiction with this proposal.

Eight hands that are unable to create a story with captivating characters. Yup, his first few minutes have a lot of adrenaline, seeing how a hacker invades and breaks the security system of the Holy See and accesses the personal computer of the Pope himself. There is also the mysterious case of a cathedral allegedly killing anyone who disturbs it. In the middle, a case of espionage within the Vatican itself and a series of corruption casesreal estate speculation and blackmail linked to obscure secrets and crimes of the Church.

Really, there was a golden opportunity to create a different thriller, that features a priest who has a “license to kill”, in true James Bond style and who is played by the magnificent Richard Armitage, while the Englishman shows his skills for a role that seems tailor-made. However, the script does not allow for further development of a character who seemed destined to play, limiting himself to his espionage mission. Nor does he delve into the rest, which makes him be a story that tries to include most of the scenes in the novel but without going into them.

A mid-range action thriller

And so it has the effect that wants to tell a lot in a short time, which leads to creating a story that is too light, with a plot that ends up resolving in a hasty and chaotic way and with a premise that ends up pulling out too many clichés, including a cheeky nod to “The Thorn Birds”. The mission to uncover the mystery of the cathedral or discover the identity of the hacker takes a back seat, being a simple Macguffin, who it disperses the story into a series of sequences that are too reminiscent of other similar filmssuch as “Emperor Code”, “The Turtle Maneuver” or “Objects”, all released this year and whose results have been better.

If you add the lack of development of secondary characters or those around Father Quart, This is a deceptive thriller, with some sequences that work due to their high doses of action, but with underdeveloped development. It gives the impression that he wanted to cover a lot and ended up sacrificing his main storyline. Add to this first level actors not sufficiently used, especially the case of Alicia Borrachero. Although Seville looks like an ideal setting, it doesn’t even look like it has been squeezed.

Finally, ‘La piel del tambor’ ends with the same thing that happened in the miniseries ‘Quart, el hombre de Roma’, in which Roberto Enríquez has already put himself in the role of the protagonist of Pérez-Reverte’s opera. The feeling reappears of how complicated it is to transfer one’s universes on the screen and reinterpret one’s literary language in the audiovisual one.

This adaptation ends up being more closely related to the aforementioned ‘Oro’, ‘La carta spherica’, even ‘The ninth door’, in which Polanski himself demonstrated how complicated it is to transfer the imagery of the Cartagena author to another half. A proposal that, perhaps, required the vision of a director or screenwriter with a greater personalityenough to appropriate the story and make it their own.

Note: 5

The best: Richard Armitage proves to have presence for the role of Father Quart.

Worse: The feeling of being in no man’s land. Nor is it necessary to mention the mistaken decision that the entire film is shot in English.