Iron Reign

Iron Reign | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Big time drug smuggling operation in Barcelona. The guy running the container operation at the port lost a hand in an 'accident' many years ago. He has been fitted with one of those old style metal claw hands, hence the Spanish title of Mano de Hierro which Google translates as Iron Hand. In the English subtitles he is referred to as 'armless'. Funny how people mangle language.

Besides the big guy and his family, we also have a couple of Mexicans who are there to collect the payment for their drugs and a Frenchman who is a big European distributor. In this mix we have a full boat of crazies. The big guy's son has a serious gambling problem, his daughter is married to a guy who is having sex with another guy, whose 'sister' is working as a maid for the the daughter. His brother is infatuated with a whore who won't run off with him. The Mexican guy practices Santeria, the Mexican girl is a cool headed dyke. Is there any normal sex in this show? If there was, I missed it. Plenty of violence, people fighting with fists, knives and guns. So a bit of perverted sex and plenty of ultraviolence.

But what makes it interesting is watching the people and trying to figure out who stole the container that has the drugs, and how did they steal it? The things are marked and tracked. It's a puzzle. Everyone is shady and 40 million Euros could tempt most anybody.

I would think that shipping containers would be just perfect for smuggling drugs. Zillions of them cross the border everyday. None of the people who are transporting them have any idea what's in them. But in this show we have people on the ship and people on the dock who know just which container is the target which leads to all kinds of problems.

However, if using shipping containers to smuggle drugs is such a good idea, why are the narcos building submarines to transport drugs? That's what they were doing a few years ago. I dunno, maybe it's just easier.

The show opens with pirates attacking a cargo ship out in the ocean. The ship is relatively small for container ship, and the containers are stacked rather haphazardly on the deck, but it's possible there are ships like that out there. The ship sailed from Mexico with stops in China and India which would have it heading through the pirate infested waters off the horn of Africa, so it's plausible. The ship is carrying the two Mexican principles along with a squad of heavily armed thugs, so the pirates are quickly dealt with. Presumably the ship continues up the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and then across the Mediterranean to Barcelona.