Green, red, blue, orange, etc. Each of the eight episodes corresponds to a color and one of the puzzle pieces of this extraordinary story. Kaleidoscope follows, over a period of 25 years, a master heist and his team as they scrupulously plan a $7 billion hit of a lifetime at one of the most secure institutions in the United States. .
But unlike traditional series, where the viewer watches a season episode by episode in a well-calibrated chronological order, Netflix leaves the public the discretion to choose the order of viewing of Kaleidoscope without this ever altering the quality of the story and its understanding. The only constraint imposed by the broadcasting giant: you have to start with the “Black” episode, in a way a brief immersion in this narrative frame in the form of mille-feuilles in which “the rules of the game” are announced, and finish by the one called “White”, who relates this famous large-scale theft. Between the two, of course, we have plenty of time to get lost in the twists and turns of this vertiginous history of organized crime in a random and non-linear way.
Needless to say, this modus operandi is real candy for fans of series and films who like to be taken out of their comfort zone, to be dangled to them that they have a role to play in fiction or , in any case, let’s have fun with their perception. Thereby, Kaleidoscope could not better bear its name since (dis)illusions and roller coaster emotions are at the rendezvous and the “colors” of the series intertwine with each other at our leisure, that we can interpret the whole according to our own prism. In the end, there are as many possible plots as there are color combinations and we could re-watch Kaleidoscope almost endlessly and each time discovering new details that could have escaped us until then.
On closer inspection, all episodes of Kaleidoscope therefore take place in a different temporality and the creator of the series Eric Garcia (Virgin Secrets) took pleasure in making us lose all sense of time, which opens the doors to a new dimension in terms of understanding. We go from 24 years before the facts to the eve of the burglary in a snap of the fingers, and the viewing becomes all the more thrilling. The brain, hero of KaleidoscopeLeo Pap, brilliantly played by actor Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), is thus the common thread that gives the viewer the impression of maintaining a semblance of lucidity. Speaking of the cast, let’s also salute Paz Vega’s performance (Grace of Monaco), who is a weapons lawyer and ally of Leo Pap, and Tati Gabrielle (Uncharted), who here is Hannah Kim, the daughter of said criminal.
As preposterous as it may seem, the creator of the series, Eric Garcia, was also inspired by a robbery, to say the least enigmatic, which would have happened on American soil after the hurricane. Sandy in 2012, when some $70 billion allegedly mysteriously disappeared from Manhattan’s Depository Trust Company. This event, Netflix and the filmmaker had fun distilling it on both sides of the scenario, blurring the tracks even more and embarking the viewers on a spiral of infinite imagination since, obviously, we never know what part fiction and reality, which can sometimes make us lose our minds…
Finally, without wanting to spoil anything, the episode “Green” is certainly – or not, and it is precisely this permanent confusion that makes the series highly addictive – one of the most thrilling to watch. In particular, it better identifies the personality of Leo Pap – or perhaps it is Ray? Who knows ! — and we also discover that the past of each of the characters is strangely linked… And what about this brilliant escape scene which, we strongly hope, will become cult? Once again, thanks to this one, Eric Garcia proves that he masterfully knew how to spread a little psychedelia in the smallest corners of Kaleidoscope, a fiction that is reminiscent of the high criminal aerobatics found in Quentin Tarantino’s films, such as pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogsor in the best French black films of the 1950s.
Kaleidoscope is therefore one to watch without moderation, as many times as necessary!