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8
- Messages
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- Location
- Plotville, Shenanigan
- Member Since
- April 2002
Espionage thrills, moldavian style massacres, friendship and betrayal, a tormented love, glitz and glamour in exotic but dangerous places - it all makes for an almost old-fashioned TV blockbuster.
Sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed by the enormousness of these productions, and THE SPY is just one of the very many in the Netflix catalogue.
We had them in the 70s and 80s too, but not so many, and they've all become TV classics because everybody watched them.
That's probably not going to happen to the Eli Cohen biopic.
It seems a most unfortunate choice to watch this right after BRÜNO, but I thought Sasha Baron Cohen did a good job in the role of the famous spy.
And this is funny because it's not like I completely forgot that I was watching SBC, but somehow it just works. The natural flair for his impostor alter ego, or the earnestness that never looks too dramatized or heavy-handed. It all makes it so much easier to watch.
Not that drama needs to be easy, but this story already has a lot of tension and conflict - it doesn't need to do more.
Some people hate it for being unfair propoganda, not telling both sides of the conflict, but I was only rooting for Eli and his wife because they were such likeable characters.
It wouldn't have made any difference if he had been a Syrian spy.
It's also interesting to see how much impact he's had on all these people; the exposure did not only result in outrage and violence, but also disappointment. The execution notwithstanding, I thought it added a sense of humanity to the Syrians.
Stan the Beeman from THE AMERICANS is also in it.