‘Los Tigres’ review: Alberto Rodríguez’s aquatic thriller sees a sibling duo lured into crime

Dir. Alberto Rodríguez. Spain/France. 2025. 109 mins. 

Spanish writer-director Alberto Rodríguez explores turbulent waters in Los Tigres, an aquatic thriller with sibling relationship themes. Despite suffering from an overworked narrative, this briskly mounted piece is capably steered by Rodríguez, recently co-creator of period TV series La Peste. 

Distinctive for its high-tension underwater sequences

A vivid, distinctive milieu, plus strong leads by prominent Spanish names Antonio de la Torre and Bárbara Lennie, could ensure a strong domestic release in late October following its premiere in San Sebastían Competition. But a genre mix that may be a little too adventure-based for arthouse outlets makes it less robust an export prospect than Rodríguez’s 2014 success, the hyper-atmospheric cop thriller Marshland.

Like that film, Los Tigres goes deep into a particular location and culture. The setting is Huelva in southwest Spain, hub of the nation’s petrochemical industry. Its central duo are adult siblings Antonio, a.k.a. El Tigre (de la Torre) and Estrella (Lennie). Both were raised by their father, a professional diver, to be in their element in the sea, as shown by a video clip that opens the film – which Rodríguez subsequently makes rather heavy weather.

Antonio is a professional diver, working for crew boss ‘El Gordo’ (Joaquin Nuñez) – ‘Fat Boy’ in the subtitles – on demanding jobs involving maintenance, equipment safety and, in one distressing case, the retrieval of dead bodies. Separated from his wife Cinta (Silvia Acosta) and painfully missing their two school-age daughters, he has moved in with his taciturn sister Estrella, who is deaf following a childhood dive gone awry. She is herself a member of El Gordo’s crew on a training basis, her career as a marine scientist having been held back by years looking after her ailing dad. Now she finds herself similarly helping Antonio through a crisis, her self-sacrificing devotion unsubtly signalled by the English motto ‘I’ll Be There For You’ on her baseball cap.

The meat of the narrative comes when Antonio discovers that a petrol tanker is carrying a consignment of cocaine. In dire financial straits, he plans to steal it, but it is the savvy Estrella who advises him on the ingenious method to do so. This high-risk gambit triggers a considerable rise in tension – but Rodríguez and his long-term writing partner Rafael Cobos continue stacking up the stakes.

First there is the crew member who wants in on the deal, then the more menacing figures who follow in his wake; there is the threat of a ruinous lawsuit from Cinta, and eventual danger to her and the daughters; there is also Antonio’s physical condition after decades of professional oxygen deprivation, the pressure mounting as he has to carry out one last descent after another. And then there is Estrella’s lack of hearing. It is as though Cobos and Rodríguez cannot let any elements go to waste, resulting in distracting narrative clutter.

A more streamlined approach may have served better, as the siblings’ fond but testy relationship sits very effectively within the depiction of El Gordo’s characterful crew. Nevertheless, De La Torre (May God Save Us, Glimmers) brings a shambling, piratical energy to the role of a man who has long sailed too close to the wind, professionally and personally. Lennie (Petra, Sunday’s Illness and soon, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas) has a more introverted intensity in a role that feels too marginalised in this predominantly masculine milieu.

Los Tigres makes imposing use of Huelva’s alienating industrial sprawl, captured in Pau Esteve Birba’s widescreen panoramas. But above all, the film is distinctive for its high-tension underwater sequences, superbly carried off by the film’s stunt team and a subaquatic camera crew under specialist cinematographer Eric Börjeson. Much of this material, under the sea or in a heavily vegetated reservoir, takes place in the murkiest waters, dense with floating grit and teeming with fish – raising the suspense considerably and inducing intense immersive claustrophobia (or strictly speaking its undersea counterpart, thalassophobia).