Israeli drama series 'Northern Storm' erupts on screen - review

• Published date: 22 April 2024
• Author: HANNAH BROWN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The series, which opens with a disclaimer that it was conceived of and filmed before October 7, looks at how 8200 cracks a ring of Hezbollah operatives who infiltrate Israel and, like Fauda, each episode has at least one nail-biting, suspenseful sequence

Given the secrecy surrounding the 8200 unit, there is no way to know how accurate any of this is, but the series portrays a state-of-the-art hi-tech headquarters in which AI is a central component and the computers display an avatar of each operative. Want to analyze the details of every ticket bought for a flight to Israel in the past year? The computer network can handle that in about 30 seconds, no problem.

At times, the series has to grapple with the central dramatic problem of the digital era, which emerged over 40 years ago with the movie WarGames and has been revisited in more recent films such as the Matrix franchise: how to make a person sitting in front of a computer and typing on a keyboard suspenseful.

In order to counter that, Northern Storm has its hero, Amir (Elisha Banai of Image of Victory) – a brilliant computer nerd who lacks the confidence of Dewey (Michael Aloni of Shtisel), his older brother who preceded him in 8200 and who is now a hi-tech success – go out into the field to capture bad guys. At key moments, he has the fighting-unit soldiers he accompanies hand him a tablet, and he types something that gives them crucial intel on how to proceed.

THE SERIES starts off with a bang (or two) and Amir blames himself for a friend's death, which is the catalyst for the hero's journey he embarks on to redeem himself. Adi (Lucy Ayoub, a star of Fauda's recent season and frequent television presenter, who is from an unusual Jewish/Christian background), his colleague in the unit with whom he is having a secret romance, spends most of her time looking at screens and doing her best not to worry when he is risking his life. We learn early on that she was once involved with his brother, in the series' most clichéd storyline.

But that isn't the only secret Dewey is hiding. The entrepreneur is in hot water with his billionaire tech boss and has suddenly returned to Israel to make things right, which has something to do with him re-joining 8200. As he plots his next move, he lounges around in a Tel Aviv pad the size of a stadium with an outdoor pool, which may be the most expensive apartment in the world.

Other characters include an ultra-Orthodox computer geek who hides from his community the fact...