307. Web-series Reviews – 140

More web-series reviews…

The Recruit – Came out in 2022. 9 episodes in total.  Owen Hendricks, a young CIA lawyer whose first week on the job turns upside down when he discovers a threatening letter by former asset Max Meladze, who plans to expose the agency unless they exonerate her of a serious crime. Owen quickly becomes entangled in a dangerous and often absurd world of power politics and mischievous players, as he travels the world in hopes of completing his assignment and making a mark at the CIA.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

Noah Centineo is well cast as reckless but lucky CIA recruit Owen Hendricks, Laura Haddock (as Max Meladze) is sufficiently bad-ass (with the necessary cracks in the surface) and all the supporting actors turn out decent performances aided and abetted by some witty and smart writing. As per typical 2020s productions - we have gender flipping turned up to max (no pun intended) with not just one toxic male template - violent, pathological, ruthlessly efficient - turned female, but three (at least).

Be prepared for lots of scenes where women generally outclass the men in all areas - including being the office sexual predator (go justice!). Thankfully, this is all handled with a degree of humour and charm and if the idea of a murderous female east european assassin sounds a bit 'Killing Eve' - imo, 'The Recruit' is genuine fun as opposed to annoying and repetitive (which KE descended into).

I've no idea how accurate the little details of CIA ops are - but the code names, references to procedure and allusions to the endless bureaucracy involved, all added to, if not realism, then at least a sense the writers had done some homework. There's a running joke involving the avoidance of responsibility and hence lack of intelligence sharing, which silly as it sounds, probably has some basis in reality.

The central premise - view a standard CIA op from the perspective of a newbie - actually works, in terms of refreshing aspects of the genre. A car chase, a physical fight with the bad guys, an interrogation or an undercover infiltration - these are all things we've seen on screen a hundred times before. But seeing them from the rookie's perspective does two basic things - it introduces an element of unpredictability and it, potentially, makes the whole thing a bit more relatable (not that we have to constantly see ourselves on-screen, more that superhuman competence can be boring to watch. We want our heroes to succeed, but we need them to occasionally fail).

There were certainly moments when Hendricks' lack of knowledge was taken to ridiculous extremes.

As one example, he has apparently not only never shot a gun before (or witnessed someone shooting a gun), but lacks the basic common sense to realise that the shoulder rest on a sub-machine gun is there for a reason.

At other times Hendricks acts like a conscientious objector with a death wish - refusing to carry a gun or wear a protective vest, for example. He also displays a ridiculous naivety as to what CIA work might entail - but, really, none of this matters too much. It's not a straight out comedy, but we're not intended to be taking any of this too seriously.

The unpredictability of a central character, who at one moment displays exceptional intuition and reasoning but the next says or does something stupid, may not stretch to multiple series - at some point 'The Recruit' will meet the end of its character arc. Hopefully the writers will resist trying to push things too far or simply repeating the same 'jokes'.

So far, though, it gets the basics right.

My Take – Worthwhile watch!

 

MH 370 – The Plane that Disappeared – Documentary on the MH370 flight.  Came out in 2023.  3 episodes in total.  Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was supposed to be a routine trip: A redeye from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 passengers and crew on board. But shortly after takeoff on a calm 2014 night, MH370 vanished from radar screens for good. The shocking disappearance of a commercial airliner made headlines, sparked riots, plunged the passengers' next of kin into a nightmare, and generated a global search for answers that never came.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

Calling this series a documentary is a disservice to actual documentary makers who set out to find the truth or at least present enough information to allow the audience to come away with their own conclusions. This series does neither. It bounces around from theory to theory, all of which are wholly incompatible with each other, and many of which have to discard known facts about the events leading to the flight's disappearance in order to work.

The main "investigator" Jeff Wise throws out theories that even viewers with no external information can poke holes in. He pitches them with phrases like "how could it have happened this way?" and "is it possible that X occurred?" He comes up with such wild theories that don't match the evidence that even other independent investigators have disavowed him.

There's also a brief interview in the first episode with a woman who claims she is 100% sure she has identified the plane wreckage based on grainy satellite images. They show schematics for the plane on top of her images, which they seem to have added pixels to. Shortly afterwards, we learn that the plane did not go down in that part of the ocean at all, but continued on a different route entirely. This inconsistency is never addressed, and I honestly can't think of a reason why it was left in the series other than to just fill time. It would be one thing if they were trying to make a point about how flawed some of the independent investigations into this have been, but as with Jeff Wise's theories, none of these investigators are ever challenged by the documentary makers.

My Take – An ok watch.

 

Iru Dhuruvam – Tamil series. First season came in 2019 and the second in 2023.  The series consists of hard-core police investigation stories dealing with investigation, detection and suspense.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

Season 1 directed by Kumaran was a neat thriller that had a very poor production value.

Detailed Review on 2nd Season:

Directed by Arun Prakash this thriller series released on sonyliv and is a decent cat and mouse thriller web series.

Positives:

The kick ass antagonist character Lankeshwaran portrayed by Prasanna is the root cause for this series being a good one

Better production value ,the first season wasn't that rich and felt mediocre cause of its low cost. But this season was well made.

Technically better than season 1

Though killer is revealed it manages to be investigation.

Sai Priyanka Ruth and Lingaa are good and characters were written complex yet well

Negatives:

Nandhaa and Abhirami's perfomance felt artificial and they didnt emote well. Nandhaa's daughter character is irritating and unnecessary

Not very thrilling

Runtime was a lot

Story could have had more twists and turns

Few unconvincing episodes and scenes

Verdict:

This series could have been better but it is engaging and it is worth a watch. Decent. Awaiting Season 3

My Take – An ok watch!

Cheers till next time😊!!