Netflix tries Spanish-language programming with the wonderful 'Club de Cuervos'

A few years ago, HBO tried a wonderful experiment: Screen some of the brilliant productions generated by its HBO Latino subsidiary on its main channel. It introduced a new audience to such shows as Capadocia, Alice, Epitafios, and Mandrake.

Though many of the shows are available on the HBO Go streaming site, the premium channel dropped the initiative.

That's all the more reason to applaud Netflix for taking a similar step with the premiere of its first Spanish-language series, Club de Cuervos. All 13 episodes of the first season, presented with English subtitles, will be posted Friday.

Created by Mexican filmmaker Gary "Gaz" Alazraki (The Noble Family), Club de Cuervos is an enjoyable one-hour satirical dramedy about the ups and downs of a professional soccer team and the dysfunctional family who owns it.

It will be the first of a roster of new productions and imports from Netflix that target Spanish-speaking audiences, including the highly anticipated Narcos, streaming Aug. 28, an ambitious, big-budget epic about Pablo Escobar (Brazilian superstar Wagner Moura) and his Colombian Medellin cartel from celebrated Brazilian director Jose Padilha (Elite Squad, Bus 174).

Set in a fictional working-class town in Mexico called Nuevo Toledo, Club de Cuervos opens with the death of the patriarch of the Iglesias family, owners of the area's biggest business interests, including its only luxury hotel, a soap factory, and the professional soccer team, the Cuervos of Nuevo Toledo.

The death sends local fans reeling: Will the Cuervos, who brought the obscure town into national prominence, move to another city? The governor is up in arms, worried that Nuevo Toledo will once again sink into poverty and despair.

Their worries are justified, considering the state of the Iglesias clan: The team's new co-owners, half-siblings Salvator "Chava" Iglesias Jr. (Luis Gerardo Méndez) and Isabel Iglesias Reina (Mariana Treviño), can't stand each other.

Isabel, who has an MBA, is a first-rate manager, but because she's a woman, she's deemed ill-suited to be the club's public face, so the job goes to Chava.

A drug-addled party boy whose academic accomplishments begin and end with a course on DJ'ing (he goes by the moniker DJ Churches), Chava is well out of his depth. He's more interested in having cocaine- and call-girl-fueled orgies with the players than acting as their boss. When his assistant tries to explain the team's eight-year plan, Chava interrupts him to complain about the team's jersey design. (Why aren't there any stars on it? It should have a lot of stars!)

Things go from bad to worse when a leggy blonde Chava's age shows up, saying she's pregnant with the family's true heir.

Disaster strikes in the second episode when a member of the family who feels snubbed by the new business arrangements leaks photos of the players doing coke at one of Chava's raves. A man-child who has a Beavis and Butt-head attitude toward PR, Chava drowns in the media uproar that follows.

Structured like a soap opera - and with a secondary cast of relations, lovers, exes, and offspring to match - Netflix's satire leaves no dramatic or comedic stone unturned. Wonderful subplots give us a glimpse into the lives of the players and their fans alike.

Club de Cuervos is simply a hoot. It's Dallas, Dynasty, The Office, and Every Given Sunday all rolled into one.

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Club de Cuervos

Netflix will post all 13 episodes of the first season at 3:01 a.m. Friday. Info: www.netflix.comEndText

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