Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fanático’ On Netflix, Where A Look-Alike Fan Of A Hip-Hop Star Takes On His Life After An Untimely Death

A new Netflix series from Spain is something that we don’t see all that often from the service: five episodes, all running 21 minutes or less, for a total runtime of about 90 minutes. What kind of story can be told in such a short period of time? A pretty simple one, as it turns out.

FANÁTICO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A hip-hop artist named Quimera (Lorenzo Ferro) psyches himself up for a show, including snorting something.

The Gist: We see scenes of the party-filled life of Quimera, filled with the typical women, booze and drugs. Then we cut to the scene of a guy named Lázaro (also Lorenzo Ferro), who’s delivering food for a DoorDash-style service. He gets a call from his girlfriend Clara (Eva Almeida) asking if he thinks he can get into the club where she and the rest of their buddies are, ready to see Quimera in concert. He’s confident he can do it but needs to do a final delivery first.

He puts on a reflective vest and makes like a bouncer as he weasels his way into the club, where Clara and their buddies reiterate that he looks like Quimera. He then goes into the bowels of the club and sees Quimera, barely conscious and certainly not ready to go on stage. His manager Pompa (Dollar Selmouni) is doing everything he can to get Quimera — real name Salvador — in shape to start the show.

Quimera goes on stage, mostly either lip synchs or lets the audience sing his first song, then stage dives into the crowd. But there’s something wrong, as Quimera is unresponsive. It’s all over social media that Quimera is dead, a victim of a “self-inflicted overdose.”

Lázaro is frustrated with his own life; he just quit his delivery job over a busted thermal bag, and it’s scuttled his plans to move in with Clara, and he is also very aware of how he looks similar to his now-dead favorite singer. When he and Clara go to his funeral, he wears the symbol Quimera had tattooed on his face, and charges up the crowd with his chants. Later that day, he gets an idea.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It’s barely a thread of a relationship, but the “Doppelganger takes a famous person’s place” plot isn’t as common as one might think. We can think of the movie Dave and a Chinese series that’s literally called Doppelganger. We’re sure there are more, but there aren’t many more.

Our Take: Written by Dani del Águila, Federico Maniá Sibona and Yago de Torres and directed by Roger Gaul, Fanático plays out in five episodes that total about 90 minutes in run time. In other words, Fanático is really a feature film split up into smaller chunks. It plays out that way, too, with episodes ending on weird plot notes.

The plot is simple: Lázaro tries to improve his lot in life by taking advantage of his similarity to Quimera (the only difference is in the nose). Clara dyes his hair pink, they make the tattoo permanent, and he’s on his way, especially when Pompa and Quimera’s other manager Hector (Fernando Valdivielso) see him after he crashes their beach party. How are they going to get Lázaro in front of Quimera’s fans and convince them that their hero is alive? And how will they resolve the nose issue?

You can put as much hip-hop sheen on the story, but at its essence is Lázaro trying to figure out if living like his favorite singer is everything he thinks it would be. We’re sure whichever way he choses at the end of this series, he’ll live happily-ish ever after. But, after watching the first two episodes, we’re pretty sure about what we’re going to see during the next three, and that makes for a pretty boring 90 minutes.

Sex and Skin: Lázaro has sex with Clara at the empty club in Episode 2, and there may be some glimpses of skin here and there, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: Lázaro, after attracting a crowd at Quimera’s funeral, stands on the balcony of Clara’s apartment building, cigarette in hand, contemplating his next step.

Sleeper Star: We liked Eva Almeida as Clara, as she seems to balance Lázaro well, but we get the feeling that she’s going to be on the losing end of Lázaro’s charade.

Most Pilot-y Line: Lázaro is asked by his last delivery customer if his food is cold. “Even better,” Lázaro replies; “it’s sushi.” Then he takes out a dripping wet container, the rain having gotten into his hole-filled bag. This is why we ask for contactless delivery when we do DoorDash.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If Fanático was longer, we would have said to skip it. But it’s a pretty quick watch, with a basic story that might show some insight about the perils of fame or — at the very least — let you listen to some killer Spanish hip hop.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.