Netflix has Sacha Baron Cohen play all right

It is rare that fitting a true story for the big or the small screen is not a problem being translated, because those who are responsible for giving life to the story can not resist to the stagnation of dramatic history. thrills beyond facts. What happens in L & # 39; spyNetflix's new limited-edition story about Israel's most famous undercover story is not surprising, but it's – more than most – totally useless. The life and times of Eli Cohen, and his infiltration for years into the highest spheres of the Syrian government and army, already constitute a series of deviant, deeply compelling events. and often fanciful. No fancy flights were necessary.

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Created by

Gideon Raff (from the book The Spy who came from Israel Yuri Dan and Yeshayahu Dan Porat)

With

Sacha Baron Cohen, Nahim Si Ahmed, Alexander Siddig, Yael Eitan, Noar Emmerich, Hadar Ratzon Rotem

infancy

Friday, September 6th on Netflix

Format

Hourlong historical thriller; the six episodes viewed

Again, with screenwriter-director Gideon Raff (creator of Prisoners of war, the original Israeli version of Country) responsible for the whole activity, one can not deny the attractive nature of the fictitious elements. Raff has the taste of craftsman to add a little spice to this historical drama, and scenes where he imagines Cohen's spying exploits at the heart of Syrian military and political machinery create pleasingly pulpy additions, even though these blur the boundaries – too great cunning cunning acts performed while under cover.

And in the story of Israel's legendary spy, Raff has some wild sources. Cohen, an Egyptian Jew who resettled in Israel after working as an activist to help other Jews leave his country of origin because of the rise of anti-Semitism, was recruited by Mossad in 1960 to pretend to be a Syrian businessman who returned home after living in Argentina. . After months of clandestinity, just to establish coverage, Cohen – now Kamel Amin Thaabet – has been able to penetrate the world of senior Syrian officials, gathering invaluable information that he would pass on through secret radio. transmissions, letters, and more. Some of his accomplishments are truly stranger than fictional, such as the discovery of the secret underground Syrian fortifications on the Golan Heights, places that he was able to accurately communicate to Israel using a false concern for the overheated Syrians. soldiers as a pretext for planting eucalyptus at each outpost. Before his capture (the series opens with this information, so there is no need to fear detractors for decades and a story easily readable with Google), it was so high that it would have been considered for the post of Deputy Minister of Defense of Syria. .

For his partner to bring this story to life, Raff found an ideal collaborator with Sacha Baron Cohen, a man with significant experience who disappeared into fictitious alter ego in the real world. Here, the artist silences his comic side and slips into the skin of Eli / Kamel, a man too demanding to take risks in the name of his reputation as a country of adoption. It is a strong and discreet performance, and the Briton successfully evokes, with nuance and seriousness, both the fierce determination and the sometimes awkward enthusiasm of the spy. Noah Emmerich, as Dan Peleg, manager of the Mossad d'Eli, also plays a moving role, although he is somewhat embarrassed by an unstable Israeli accent.

But the story of the daily human drama captured by Raff's camera is equally captivating – and potentially richer. She keeps coming back to Nadia (the beautiful Hadar Ratzon Rotem), Eli's wife. The wife and mother are kept in the dark, believing that her husband is a furniture buyer traveling abroad for the government. The emotional tribute taken while Eli leaves for one year at a time, unable to communicate, missing the birth of his children, makes the drama moving, to the point that it is becoming more and more a welcome change when the attention turns away spying and returning to solitary domestic world of Nadia. (At one point, she grasped the transformation of her situation by saying to Eli's boss, "In realizing his dreams, you have ruined mine.")

But part of the reason for the attraction of Nadia's story lies in the too rigid development of Eli's adventures. The first half of the series unfolds with a rhythm, almost predictable beats, familiar to anyone who has seen a few films about new enthusiastic spies. Similarly, Raff's script never tries to delve into the moral complexities of the situation; Eli is only a devout servant of Israel who strives to do what is right, even if it puts him more in danger. L & # 39; spy could have used some of the ambiguities of Emmerich's latest series, Americans. This sometimes borders on hagiography, and in a strange way: Raff describes Eli as a devoted husband who resists the lure of Kamel's high-altitude pathways until he is forced to some acts to maintain his coverage, while the real Eli Cohen would have kissed his alter The ego single life brilliantly. The series seems almost embarrassed each time that she has to portray Eli in a less flattering light, and this reticence hurts the drama.

Nevertheless, the narrative accelerates around episode four, while Raff injects a growing sense of claustrophobia and intensity into Eli's disappointments. While some early pursuit sequences suffer from a lack of coherent spatial geography, subsequent action moments are described in such a way as to take advantage of Eli's lack of knowledge, thus plunging the viewer into a world of safety. is not clearly defined. There is an inevitable element of propaganda in history – even senior Mossad leaders, perfectly happy to endanger the lives of their own citizens, are noble servants of a benevolent state – but Raff understates the presence of cheerleading rah-rah, at least until the end. end. L & # 39; spy It never quite reaches the level of its excellent leading actors, but ends up being a satisfactory description of one of the most unusual success stories of international espionage.