Brigands: The Quest For Gold is a new Italian historical drama on Netflix that follows the story of Giuseppe Schiavone, a notorious bounty hunter who becomes embroiled in a quest to find a map that leads to a treasure of gold. The show features a large cast of characters, including brigands, townspeople, and soldiers, and takes place in the beautiful setting of Sicily and southern Italy.
The first episode does a good job of setting up the story and introducing the characters. It opens with a map of Sicily and southern Italy, and a voiceover that says, “People say that my land is poor. That it’s burned by the sun. That it’s damned. But that’s not true. My land is rich. That’s why there’s always someone there to ransack it.” The voiceover is from Giuseppe Schiavone, a bounty hunter who is known as the Sparrowhawk.
Two years before the events of the first episode, Schiavone fought for the red shirts during the battles that eventually led to the reunification of Italy. However, he was disillusioned by the leadership, who took all of the gold from Palermo’s bank to pay for the war, leaving death and destruction behind. The gold is buried somewhere on the mainland, and the map to find it again has also gone missing.
Now, Schiavone is a bounty hunter who is tracking down the map. He brings a catch to the central Italian town of Basilicata because he knows that a landowner named Clemente Degli Orti has the map. Don Clemente indeed has the map, and he’s scheming with a military leader named Fumel to find the gold. Fumel is concerned with the brigands, gangs of bandits that attack from hidden positions in the woods. Clemente says that’s a myth, but Schiavone knows better.
Meanwhile, Schiavone is at Clemente’s compound looking for the map, and gets arrested. Filomena manages to escape, but is found by the Monacos, a family of brigands. They hope she can bring a ransom, as they need money to help get the father of the group’s leader, Pietro, out of prison. Once they find out who she is, Maria “Ciccilla” Oliverio, one of the group’s fiercest bandits, is ready to kill her. But Filomena saves herself by telling them she can get them the money they need.
So they go back to Clemente’s estate, where she gives them the contents of her now-dead husband’s safe and takes the map for herself. In the meantime, Fumel is looking for Filomena, and recruits the now-captured Sparrowhawk to find her. He takes the job to spare himself a death sentence, but insists on being sent with the other prisoners — including the man he captured — to the deadly prison, because he has his own plan.
There’s a lot to look forward to in Brigands: The Quest For Gold. The show has a great cast, a compelling story, and a beautiful setting. However, it remains to be seen how well the rest of the limited series will keep track of its large cast. Michela De Rossi, who plays Filomena, is a standout performer, and her character is likely to be the most compelling of the bunch. Overall, Brigands: The Quest For Gold is a promising show with a lot of potential, but it remains to be seen if it can hold up under the weight of its massive cast.
