The Paramedic
Ratings: 2.5/5
Director: Carles Torras
Producer: Netflix
Genre: Thriller
Language: Spanish
Release Date: 16 September 2020
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Star Cast: Mario Casas, Déborah François, Celso Bugallo, Raúl Jiménez, Pol Monen, Gerard Oms, Guillermo Pfening as Ricardo, Maria Rodríguez Soto
Plot: Ángel Hernández (Mario Casas) is a paramedic whose job is to help reach accident victims to the hospital by the ambulance. His life takes a hellish turn when he survives an accident himself, becomes wheelchair-bound, and starts tracking his partner’s moves suspecting her to be having an affair.
Review: These days Netflix is investing quite a lot in its suspense-thrillers, be it films or series, however, not every piece is a gem of a production, especially if it is a film like ‘The Paramedic’ or ‘El Practicante’ (Spanish). Ángel’s source of income is not only limited to his profession as a paramedic, but he also earns some extra bucks from selling the souvenirs he collects from the accident spots. He also likes to keep a few of them for personal use. He is greedy; he is a liar, an egoist, rude and an individual who suspects his live-in partner Vanesa François (Déborah François) is cheating on him. One fine evening his ambulance is hit by another vehicle, Ángel makes it through, but the damage in his lower body makes him wheelchair-bound, impairing his sensual abilities forever! Ángel installs a hacking software in Vane’s mobile to track her moves, however, when Vane accidentally learns about Ángel’s intentions, she manages to escape his house. The problem with ‘The Paramedic’ is, the film appears to be an extended trailer and holds you on in the hope that the thrills are just about to begin. Unfortunately, you never quite get the thrills out of this flick.
Ángel’s cunning mind later finds out that Vane is in a relationship with Ángel’s ex work-partner, he schemes a revenge plot and succeeds at locking up Vane. He even kills his ex-partner and a well-wishing old neighbor to conceal his crimes. All thanks to his knowledge of drugs as a paramedics staff, he uses some anesthetic injection to first knock them down and then kill them. Vane flees the house after a final struggle with Ángel turning into a completely disabled individual. ‘The Paramedic’ concludes with Vane returning with vengeance claiming to the doctors that she will take care of him from now on. Although the ending hints towards Vane to settle the scores with Ángel as he is nothing but a vegetable now, the entire film fails to offer any novel angle or presentation technique that is equally edgy.
The Netflix Original flick also leaves a number of bleary areas for the audience making the film even more difficult to digest. For instance, Vane is never seemed to be much in love with Ángel, yet she is seen pacifying her boyfriend pretty intimately when he comes to know about her sexual inabilities right after the accident. Vane’s character sketch appears to be contradictory! Next, Ángel always suspected that Vane is having an affair with a guy from his vet class. However, the film later reveals that she is in a relationship with Ángel’s ex-colleague. So, when did they actually start to see each other? And why does the film tries to justify Vane’s adultery and not Ángel’s agony? No matter how insensitive and irritating Ángel was, he was loyal to her girlfriend and wanted to have a family. Vane sneaks out of Ángel’s home when she understood that her games could be over anytime! She puts her desires first before Ángel’s commitment and health.
All the leading characters in the film are shady and none of them really achieves what they risk so much for! The making of the film suggests that it wanted to be everything - a captivating erotica, a gripping thriller, a spellbinding revenge drama, but becomes nothing out of all. ‘The Paramedic’ is an ordinary drama that drags the burden of its own muddled events for a while and ends offering little to no delight!
