"Traitor" investigates what caused the mass catastrophe, but her heart is with those left behind

The new intelligence series by Ron Leshem and Amit Cohen ("Lockdown Time") tries to find out what happened to an Israeli plane that was lost on the way to India.

Despite high production values, a significant emotional backbone and some interesting ideas, the superficial preoccupation with issues of depth and terrible chemistry between the actors hinders the enjoyment of a likable and generic thriller

Nadav Menuhin

14/09/2022

Wednesday, September 14, 2022, 03:24 Updated: 03:51

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Bion series with all the familiar shticks.

From "Traitor" (Photo: HOT and NEXT TV)

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 departed in March 2014 from Kuala Lumpur, but did not arrive in Beijing.

In fact, it disappeared from the radar on the way. The world stared in amazement at the screens: how in the 21st century could an entire plane disappear, without any system detecting what actually happened to it at all? The sad mystery was solved more than a year later, when fragments of the aircraft were found in the sea.

And what What if this had happened to a plane that left Israel? This is the starting point of "Bogad", the new Hot series written by Ron Leshem and Amit Cohen, each of whom you know from a variety of separate television projects, and together they were also partners in "No Man's Land" and of course "Shaat Lock." Alongside the star screenwriters, Assaf Polonsky ("A Week and a Day") directs. At the focus of the series is, therefore, one of the ultimate Israeli anxieties: a plane that took off from Tbilisi and disappeared on the way to India, and now everyone - the security services and of course the families themselves - are trying to understand what It happened to them, when Israeli anxieties go in every direction,

Interesting ideas, superficial writing.

Niv Sultan Vasil Farhat, from "Traitor" (Photo: HOT and NEXT TV)

The main hero is Dan Malka (Oz Zahavi), an ambitious intelligence flower in the Shin Bet who also serves as a narrator. The senior commander of the HML in the field, who has the odd name Dotsi (Orena Banai), sets him up with Georgi (Lior Ashkenazi), a member of the "A former man who was blinded in the service, whose wife and two children are on the flight, to his horror. He insists on joining the investigation team, and in fact from then on he is a bully to Malka who is forced to help him with every demand. Between the two, it is likely, a relationship similar to "a woman's scent" will develop throughout their journey. , but in the first two episodes that were sent to journalists it is mainly a display of insults.

They are not the only ones looking for answers.

Ravit (Niv Sultan, one with a track record of Israeli intelligence series in which dramas take place on airplanes), plays a young eastern woman from Tiberias whose brother (Adi Alon), a private from one of the operations in the Gaza Strip, is on the plane. Ravit discovers to her astonishment that her brother has fallen in love with an Arab partner, and that he is a member of a radical post-colonial group. Meanwhile, wedding dress designer Miki Tessa (Neta Plotnik), whose husband was on the plane, has to deal with the fact that his ex-wife also traveled with him, and that's not even the only secret that suddenly emerges. In a third scene, Neve Zur ( "Jesus and Rejoice") was left behind when his father was on the flight.

Good actors, shocking chemistry.

From "Traitor" (Photo: HOT and NEXT TV)

The plot of "Traitor" is divided between the main investigation, with all the shticks of intelligence series, database crossings, investigations and so on, and the melodrama that is hidden within the small stories, which are more interesting, and which are less interesting.

The main strength of the series seems to be in the great story: while from the moment the plane disappears the passengers are effectively absent from the series as well, the relationship of the characters with this great void forms a significant emotional backbone for the series, with an interesting televised discussion of representations of grief and ways of dealing with it.

Together with them we worry, wonder, and try to crack the little puzzles that the missing left behind, if there are any solutions at all.

Visually, "Bogad" is also a handsome series.

As in other Leshem-Cohen and Co. series, the production values ​​are very high, the cinematography is good, and the locations are carefully designed.

This is television of high standards, even if it has an air of generics.

A creepy encounter.

From "Traitor" (Photo: HOT and NEXT TV)

The problems start when you go down to smaller resolutions, mainly around the script, and they did indeed also characterize "Lockdown Time".

Some of the cornerstones of the plot touch on interesting ideas such as Ashkenazi-Mizrahim relations, disability or Jewish-Arab partnership - but the engagement with them is superficial and cliché, on the border of unreliable cliché.

This is also true when looking at the game.

By themselves, many of the actors here demonstrate not bad acting abilities at all, and each of them is good individually: Neta Plotnik is excellent, Oz Zahavi's monologues are beautiful, Lior Ashkenazi is as convincing as ever, and so on.

The problem is, unfortunately, that together it doesn't work in any way.

The chemistry between Zahavi, Ashkenazi and Bnai, and not only between them, is shocking.

It also feels the same in other encounters of characters, for example in the creepy meeting of Mickey with the creepy business partner of her missing partner, an extreme character played by Shai Avivi.

Thus the pendulum of the series moves from interesting moments to embarrassing moments almost continuously.

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To the full article

In conclusion, "Traitor" doesn't really take off but it doesn't crash either.

It provides a reasonable and enjoyable Israeli thriller, but also one that does not innovate anything.

It will be interesting to follow and see if she manages to weave all the ends of these fromms in an interesting enough way into a bigger statement, and in the meantime wonder: which of the characters is really aimed at by the name of the series.

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