2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

jmvscotland A Peugeot that failed consistently to start. That was just about the only part of this absolutely dire hash of a TV Series that was believable. The USA supporting the establishment of A Palestinian State? Not while by bottom points to the ground.I am Australian and grew up on a steady diet of mostly high quality TV drama. The list of great BBC, ITV, Granada, Yortkshire, Film Four etc TV dramas is long and impressive but boy did the BBC fail with this one. I feel like I've wasted eight otherwise useful hours of my life sitting through this load of tripe, at first in the hope that something exciting and credible might just happen and, after about the second episode, just wanting it to end so that I'd have an opportunity to express my extreme disappointment here in IMDb.I realize now that I should have read at least some of the negative reviews of this series rather than simply looking at the 8.2 on IMDb that it inexplicably rates. Had I taken that little bit of time, I could have saved myself eight hours of mostly mind-numbing boredom and seven or eight quid into the bargain.I used to think that Maggie Gyllenhaal was a great actress after first seeing her fabulous performance in "Secretary" with James Spader. But, I quite agree with what one or two others have said here about her performance as Nessa Stein. If you want someone who can play a rich little British girl, then for God's sake why not cast a British actress; there are any number of them out there who I'm sure would have done a much better job of Nessa Stein and who would probably have been much cheaper to hire than Maggie G.Maggie's dialogue coach it seems must bear most of the blame for her hokey British accent. Not too bad overall but always with such deliberate and painful enunciation of every single syllable that I found it painful whenever she said anything at all. I kept wanting to grab her by the shoulders and tell her to bloody well get on with it and not make such a meal of every single line. And the crying!!! As others have mentioned, just about every one of Maggie's scenes involved the water works to a greater or lesser extent. She gets upset thinking about her poor, dead, evil old Dad. She cries. She sees a child. She cries. She has a fight with her brother. She cries. She's taken prisoner in Gaza after a particularly stupid venture into that place. She cries.Ridiculous jumped up, self-important rubbish is this series from start to finish. Poorly written, hopelessly and turgidly directed, appallingly acted by just about everyone in it and way, way, way too long and there you have it. Dull and unutterably boring. I'm just glad it's over.JMV

SnoopyStyle Nessa Stein (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is trying to use her family's business to construct a telecommunication connection to the Palestinian territories. She has high ideals promoting a policy of reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. Part of that is to seek out a Palestinian partner for the venture. Her father's killing in front of her is still a major pain for her and her brother. However, she is hiding a secret from 8 years ago when she ventured into the Gaza Strip. It is secrets upon secrets as world politics and personal struggles collide.The first thing about this series is that it is well written. It is not just what's on the surface. Everybody has a secret. It is an intricate web of lies and double-cross. There is no need to spoil anything. Gyllenhaal gives a very solid performance as do so many of the actors. This is simply smart television. I'm fine with a limited series because it allows for more intense storytelling.

f-mimmi A decent story spoiled by en erratic script going unnecessarily to and fro with lines hinting but not saying, a director in love with still life and pauses (to make an Antonioni it takes an Antonioni), an over-acting actress (Maggie Gyllenhaal must think she is sort of an Eleonora Duse, always posing and sniffing and grimacing). Even the good ones, like Stephen Rea, are compelled to stay frozen all the time pretending they are the most intelligent people in the world. Andrew Buchan (Ephra Stein) is cornered into an absurd love story with the nowadays usual and gratuitous sex sessions. Alltogather very very boring, the only plausible thing is that almost everybody is bad or stupid, quite similar, even though unwillingly, to real life.

f-odds-1 There is a really worrying trend in today's television. With so many channels trying to fill so many viewing hours, free rein is given to anyone who comes along with a serial that will last for 8 or more episodes. What we, the viewers, then suffer is directorial licence to bore.I don't mind that producer/director/writer Hugo Blick plays with his audience, showing incomprehensible events that will make sense later. I DO mind that the sense of expanded time available allows longueurs in direction and playing that are fundamentally unforgivable. All the reviews that complain there is a strong component of boredom in this 8-week serial result from the simple consideration that the whole thing would have been brilliant as a two-parter, good in three parts, and downright tedious in anything longer.By episode three the viewer suffers a strong dislike of the characters and their situations that arises solely from too much audience-tease. Yep, we can see that, by the time of the Hamlet-like denouement, it's all going to be resolved, but — unless you care massively, from your background of birth and upbringing, about the Israel-Palestine conflict — you have lost the will to follow the detail any further.The script does its job well, but seldom exceptionally. I recall only one line from the eight parts. A character, asked why he hadn't reported a particular situation, responds that "This old dog can't chase a ball and talk at the same time". If only the line had used "bark" instead of "talk" it might have gone internet-viral.The direction and photography are consistently good, but seldom inspiring. Far too many shots are heavily backlit without compensation to show the actors' faces clearly. Yes, that may give something of the overall impression of the way we see backlit people in real life, but our eyes in practice manage to adapt and take in the important detail (something the camera can never do), which is why early filmmakers and lighting cameramen learned to ensure their actors are well illuminated.I could go on, but you get my (personal and subjective) opinion. The whole thing just went on far too long, its script would have benefited from firm editing, and its direction has discomfitingly self-evident downsides. Sorry, Hugo Blick: good team efforts are sometimes better than self-confident auteur productions. The ideas are great, but the execution needs attention. And, by the way, the acting throughout is superb. Blick knows how to get the very best out of his cast, which is the strongest point by far of the whole enterprise.