[2] Characterized by its deliberately cartoonish humor, it proved to be a massive box office hit, and Torrente became part of Spanish contemporary popular culture.

In order to get close to her, he befriends her nerdy weapon enthusiast cousin, Rafi, by taking him to target practice and on his nightly patrol rounds through the neighbourhood.

Torrente and Rafi sneak into the restaurant at night and witness El Francés, the underboss of the drug trafficking outfit run by a mobster named Mendoza, torturing and executing a delivery boy named Wang, who had lost a shipment of the heroin (which in reality was unwittingly taken by Torrente's father) and they overhear that the outfit will soon be receiving a major drug shipment from a mobster known as Farelli.

Torrente enlists the help of Rafi's equally nerdy friends: Malaguita, a martial artist, Bombilla, an electronics expert, and Toneti, a James Bond aficionado.

The crew picks up Torrente's father from the hospital (while drunk) and then prepare a reconnaissance mission to discover the location of the drug deal.

Toneti goes to the Chinese restaurant while wearing a wire but quickly blows his cover and winds up revealing Torrente's name to El Francés before trying to escape through a window and falling to his death.

Torrente guns down El Francés and ends up getting shot in the stomach himself, while Rafi goes to rescue Amparo (who had been providing oral service to Mendoza's men in a back room).

Santiago Segura resurrected the Spanish popular comedy, paying tribute to the films of Alfredo Landa, Mariano Ozores and others.

Torrente's father Felipe was inspired by Tony Leblanc, the actor who plays him and who had suffered a car accident that left him disabled.

[7] He had great success in casting Neus Asensi, Jimmy Barnatán, and Javier Cámara, in addition to "reviving" the career of Tony Leblanc, who had been retired for 23 years.

The film has numerous cameos by leading Spanish actors such as Jorge Sanz, Gabino Diego, and Javier Bardem), and many other faces familiar to the general public such as Poli Díaz, Pepe Navarro, Cañita Brava, Andreu Buenafuente, El Gran Wyoming, and the comedy duo "Faemino y Cansado".

[citation needed] Juan F. Egea assessed the whole film must be read either "as a) an explicit avowal of sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia in late twentieth-century Spain, or b) a satirical denunciation of its existence".

[26] Several films have subsequently been inspired by Torrente, such as R2 and the case of the headless corpse or Vivancos 3, if you like it we will make the first two, but achieved less success from audiences and critics.

[citation needed] Beginning in 2006, conversations for an American remake that involved producer Chris Bender and director Oliver Stone, the latter who made a cameo in the third installment of the saga,[27] were reported to take place.

[28] In 2010, it was announced that the film would be produced by New Line Cinema, to be written by Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer and David Mandel, and that the main character would be played by Sacha Baron Cohen.