El crack dos

The private detective Germán Areta is given a new job: find a man who has disappeared. The man is said to be gay and to have walked out on the person he lived with. While Areta is following the trail, both of them are found dead. The official view is straightforward: one killed the other and then took his own life. Areta does not believe it. José Luis Garci's Spanish film is the sequel to El Crack of 1981. Alfredo Landa plays Areta again. The telling carries the shape of American film noir to Madrid: rain, night, a tired man. The film does not judge the victims by their sexuality; the real question is how readily the official explanation was accepted.