Berlin has everything it needs to be a big hit, from its connections to global sensation Money Heist; to the polished qualities of a Netflix production and the easy, pulpy thrills of a heist led by a cast of attractive people. But early on there’s a sense that this spin-off/prequel is just spinning its wheels, stoking the obligatory sexual tension between crew members and getting its characters out of sticky situations far too easily. Berlin is familiar for sure, which means it can still be entertaining in bursts, with well-shot, well-edited heist sequences jolting each episode awake. But it’s difficult to find any sort of emotional foothold here, as the title character’s actions become even harder to understand.
During his glory days, Berlin and a gang assembled in Paris for one of his greatest plans ever: stealing 44 million euros' worth of jewels in one night.
The master thief known as Berlin attempts to steal a fortune's worth of jewels in Paris, accompanied by a crew of robbers.
If you're watching Berlin purely for mindless heist fun (or because you're a Money Heist completionist) and you aren't overly concerned about story and character, then that might actually be the ideal way to view this. The situations that Berlin's crew get into require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, but they still make good use of space and timing to make things appear suspenseful, even if you know the characters are probably going to be safe for the early episodes. As far as stylish genre fare goes, you could do a lot worse—but you could also do much better.
The fact that heist stories about stealing lots of money have become such massive franchise hits that have earned lots of money has got to be some sort of cosmic irony at this point.
