Scene 1, interior day: On the bed in a smelly room we see a man hungover after a night of alcohol and cigarettes. And from here a torrent of clichés, hackneyed characterizations and a tenuous line of investigation around the rape and strangulation of a 16-year-old girl who, although she could have taken a shortcut towards building the characters by exploiting awareness of stereotypes, at no time transcends the commonplace -the Opel Kadett that the protagonist drives says more than all the dialogues put into the mouth of Fred Tatien by Juan Miguel del Castillo and his screenwriter-.

The action takes place in Cadiz, and although there are location shots that reveal the surroundings, neither the Bay nor the proximity of the Strait have an effect on images that could have been shot at way stations in almost any provincial city. Nor is there much to scratch from the procedural plot towards which a disgraced inspector is pushed, who plays his plate at the same time that he delves into a personal drama with very murky ramifications; Juan Miguel del Castillo solves it with little tension and by doing it ex officio, more interested in a plot that emphasizes a parallel plot in which Natalia de Molina puts a face and voice to the anguish of a woman threatened by her ex-partner.

7