Director Enrique Urbizu’s intelligent and exciting Box 507 is a fine addition to the growing body of Spanish thrillers that focus on the socio-political realities of contemporary Spain rather than the generic conventions of Hollywood. After his teenage daughter is killed in a fire, bank manager Modesto (Antonio Resines) struggles to put his life back together. Seven years later, when documents are taken from a safety deposit box (Box 507) at his bank, Modesto discovers that the fire which killed his daughter was deliberately started to free up land for illegal construction. Modesto’s subsequent investigations reveal a web of corruption that leads right to the very heart of Spanish institutional life.
Urbizu brings a marvellous sense of control to an intricately plotted, tautly paced crime story that builds to a showdown as inevitable as it is satisfying. Like the best crime writers, he is a moralist at heart: an old-fashioned storyteller with an unshakeable belief that a wrong must be avenged, and justice done. Resines’ wonderfully realistic central performance and cinematographer Carles Gusi’s blinding images of the gaudy Costa Del Sol locations are perfectly in tune with the director’s vision..