Reviews

The show is slow. This has to be said. The slowness is a minus, not a neutral or a plus. It's the only major weakness of the show, which prevents it from being a 10/10 show.

Watching an episode a week may feel like nothing happens, but if you watch 2 - 4 a day, the story feels faster. There are episodes where nothing really happens, but if the episodes were longer, say 2-3 hours long, one would feel that something did happen, just slowly. It's all about how you cut it.

The story is very interesting and it's simplistic to say that it's about a man who adjusts to life after prison. His release from death row has a domino effect on the town, his lawyer, his former friends, the police, and every single member of his family. The effect is not immediate, different things take their own time to be apparent, but it goes from subtle to dramatic as time goes on.

-2 for the slowness, but 8/10 still.

Don't expect this to be a story about someone who has an existential moment in a mega-supermarket or is shocked by technology - it's a story about people. There is very little "these are the things you missed in the last two decades" - the story is more about what happened to his mind in solitary confinement on death row than how much the world changed on the outside.

Other than the personal/family drama, there is also the legal drama as the charges he is facing are not dropped and finally there is some detective drama, as the sheriff investigates the case, the inconsistencies in the trial, and subsequent matters that surface after and as a result of his release.

I had to write a review because the written reviews here don't seem to match the actual score of the film.

The film follows some young soldiers to the front, but it's exactly what you expect. There is very little in terms of story or character development. It is the equivalent of watching a reenactment of the war rather than a story set in the war. The war itself is in the foreground, the middle ground and the background - it is the be all and end all of the film.

There is very little in terms of film - thoughts, deep dialogues, score, music, iconic scenes, locations, characters, camera movement or anything that makes a film stand out from a webcam on the front.

The film had a small budget and some things look fake, but I wouldn't take 0.5 of my final score for that minor detail. The artillery and guns look, but the action is not exciting. There are very few camera tricks (tracking, pans, follow) or quick cuts that make the action scene exciting, to take us from being observers to participants.

It gets points for being one of the most realistic (in mood) war films. It is not dramatized or fetishized, but it is plain and has no message. It places you there. But that's about all it does. It's as enjoyable as being there in person.

The Winter War is an interesting subject, but I don't think this film does it justice at all. It just shows it, but says nothing about it in any way.

I watched it for the action scene and it was amazing. It was better and more realistic than so many old films and so many foreign films. Compare this to the Russian "Nochnye lastochki" and the latter's flight scenes look like the work of a film student.

The cockpit shots, the dogfight, the squadron vs squadron, the dashboard shot, the camera work, the sound, etc. It might be the best dogfight I've ever seen on film, despite it lasting for barely 3 minutes.

It's a good watch, but too short to have a meaningful story or a higher score.

With a good story, a full-length story I mean, I have no doubt that this crew could've made the best aviator/pilot films ever. If this were a trailer, I'd be counting the days to see the full film, but alas, this is all there is to it.

I've seen many - American, British, Canadian, French, Bulgarian, German, Russian, etc.

This one is the best one. It is better than Law and Order (although very different), better than Undercover (Pod Prikritie), better than Luther, the Bridge (any of them), the Killing (any of them) and so many others. Do not compare this to Braquo - Engrenages is way better.

The first season is a bit amateurish, but as the show goes on, it comes onto its own.

The characters are brilliant and the performances are perfect. The story is great, as are all the subplots. The relationships between the characters are so rich and complex that it does not feel like it's a TV show at all. It's suspenseful, dramatic, funny and sad.

It is not perfect in every way - there might be minor production imperfections here and there, the music/soundtrack is not all that, but the quality of everything else overshadows any minor blemishes.

Simply put - this is the new gold standard for police dramas.

I gave it a 7 because 7.5 is not possible.

I watched this show not knowing it was related to Homeland, and that gave me a good perspective. Having watched Homeland later and enjoyed both, I can say that they're two completely different shows with only one thing in common - the return of prisoners of war.

This could've been a much better show, because the ingredients were all there, but maybe the next generation of Israeli TV shows will learn from Hatufim's mistakes.

The sets/lighting are very TV-y and amateurish. It's not as good as American TV nor as good as Israeli cinema. It looks low budget, and that's sad, because the story is great.

The story is too slow. I'm not looking for a bus chase, but the slowness is the wrong kind of slowness. It's not suspense, dialogues, facial expressions, music, letting a thought or an idea sink into the minds of the viewers - it's just slow. There are scenes that are too long, such as a character looking at photos on the internet or another looking for stuff in the trash. There's no reason why these scenes should be that long.

The music is nothing special. There's little use of music. There's some Arabasque Middle-Eastern themes, but it's a bit cliché and only gives us the idea that we're on the Syrian side - it has no mood or message. The soundtrack is anonymous and forgettable, when it could've been used to deliver a message.

The cinematography is mediocre. There are very few establishing shots. Lots of indoor scenes.

The torture scenes go too long and are repeated too often.

There's a lot of repetition in some themes, such as the suffering of one of the families.

The budget of the production was tiny, but cutting out repetition would not have cost much.

Having that said, the story is brilliant. The characters are great, well-written and the actors do a great job of portraying them. All those negatives I mentioned could not get in the way of a great story, which is what this is.

An actual remake of this that avoids those mistakes I highlighted would get a 9 or 10 from me. Homeland is not that remake - it's a different show with its own story and is in a separate genre. Homeland is more of an action/terrorsploitation show, while this show is a lot more subtle, more personal, more about the returnees and their families than "We have 24 hours to find the bomb." More action would not have made this show better. But this is a very, very good show and there's nothing like it on TV.