Sometimes, it’s rushed to a fault, like a cheesy training montage that shows how Eli gets into physical and mental shape over the course of a few months, or with a key detail that’s just not hammered in enough-Eli’s devotion to country, which becomes his motivation to be gone for so many years. Raff has a “ Pleasantville”-like approach with his color palette, only bestowing his images with full color once Eli is deep in his mission at episode three, and for the most part it feels tightly plotted. Eli jumps at the chance, even though it means lying to his wife Nadia ( Hadar Ratzon Rotem) about where he is, and what he’s doing. A twice-rejected applicant to Mossad, Eli is brought on by his future handler Dan Peleg ( Noah Emmerich), and assigned to make connections with major people in Syria, to find out what they’re planning to unleash on Israel. Cynicism, you lose.Across six episodes, the series details through some bizarre twists how Eli went from a diligent department store employee in Israel to a spy embedded in Syria, pretending to be a confident business man named Kamel Amin-Thabaath. dissertations on economics, but Donovan does, and threatens to upend the entire deal if Pryor isn't freed as well. Washington and Moscow don't particularly care about kids writing Ph.D. But he's also a softy, and finagles his negotiations to include a young American graduate student, Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), who was picked up by East German police for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In his familiar role as Hollywood's consummate Everyman figure, Hanks upholds the movie's message that we all (FBI and CIA included) must act by the rules of the Constitution, and that the legal protections it promises are to be shared by all, even those who would do harm to our country. This is Hanks' fourth time working with Spielberg (after "Saving Private Ryan," "The Terminal" and "Catch Me If You Can"). There is much about Abel that remains a cipher, even when the jig is up. (When Donovan spots a group of people running towards the Berlin Wall, you just know he will witness their deaths by machine-gun fire.)īy this token, Rylance (a three-time Tony Award-winner) gives the film's stand-out performance in part by doing so little - his stillness and taciturn demeanor in the face of so much hot-blooded vitriol, international brinkmanship, and a looming death sentence is riveting. The film is thankfully quieter and less frenetic than is suggested by its hyped-up trailer, but nonetheless it's brazenly obvious about its intentions compared to productions based on some of John Le Carre's espionage novels, such as "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold," "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," or "A Most Wanted Man." Spielberg hits his emotional points hard, with or without children around, and telegraphs dramatic events to the point where - even for a historical reenactment whose key points are known - they become predictable. Like a high-stakes poker game, they are also betting that the other side won't presume their man has already talked, or else the captive's value would be nil. This is where Donovan's insurance background comes in handy, by playing up the contingencies - each government is trying to insure that their guy won't break under questioning, or insure that the next spy captured down the road won't break.
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