I suppose it isn't that surprising that Sasha Baron Cohen is an incredible actor outside of comedy but he really blew me away in this. I say that it shouldn't be surprising because think about all the absurd situations that Borat, Ali-G, and Bruno have been in where Sasha never broke character.... That takes extreme skill and Cohen definitely shows that he has the chops to excel as a serious dramatic actor in this mini-series that dropped on the Flix just a few days ago.
This show is based on the real-life events of Eli Cohen, who only coincidentally shares the same last name as our buddy Borat. It is also a coincidence that they happen to look pretty much exactly like one-another.
Eli was a hastily-trained Israeli spy who managed to successfully infiltrate the highest levels of government in Syria while posing as a businessman named Kamel Amin Thaabet. He made all the right connections and became friends with military and government operatives, all while never breaking his cover.
As you would expect, this film has aroused a great deal of controversy in the Arab world, who feel as though his position in the series is glorified while the Syrians have been made to look like not-so-good. I don't want to address that because to be honest I had no idea this was based on true events until the final episode where they stated that it was with words on the screen.
I just want to talk about how extremely impressed I am with Sasha Baron Cohen's acting throughout. He is just outstanding. I think part of the reason why I am so surprised by this is because, with the exception of bit roles here and there, he is always clowning in everything he is in.
Another thing that I really enjoyed about this mini-series is that they decided to go with "just as many episodes as was necessary to tell the story" rather than doing what most series do and make 10 episodes, or 20 or, however many they need to in order to fill a network time-slot and in the process have tons of garbage presented alongside the actual story. This is a major problem I have with a vast majority of series that appear on Netflix.
Each episode is tense and progresses the story as is needed. There is virtually zero filler in this series at all and that is just so divine and rare these days.
There was always going to be some arguing about the historical merit about what is going on when the story involves an Israeli spy and honestly, I am not concerned about the authenticity: This is something that happened (or was meant to have happened, depending on your perspective) 60 years ago and therefore I don't really care about all that. What I do care about is the fact that Sasha Baron Cohen has just shown to me (and perhaps he will to you) that he might just be one of the most versatile and talented actors alive.
Even if you don't watch the entire thing because the subject matter doesn't interest you, you should still at least have a look at how compelling Ali-G can be in a serious role. I found the entire series to be captivating and I burned through the 6 episodes in a day and a half.
Go look this up and take my word on it, you will be impressed.
