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The Spy

The Spy

TV Series · 2019 · 13 people

The life of Eli Cohen, one of Israel's most celebrated Mossad agents, inspired The Spy, an English-language French espionage miniseries. Created and directed by Gideon Raff, it was made by France's Légende company for Canal+ and Netflix, with OCS airing it in France and Netflix elsewhere. The six episodes arrived on Netflix on 6 September 2019 to "generally favorable" reviews on Metacritic.

The story follows Cohen as he lives undercover in Damascus in the early 1960s. He embeds himself in Syrian high society and climbs through the ranks of its politics until the Syrian regime uncovers him, sentences him to death and hangs him publicly in a Damascus square in 1965. A national hero in Israel, Cohen is played by Sacha Baron Cohen (no relation), with Noah Emmerich in support. Tim Seyfi is also in the cast.

The series draws on Uri Dan and Yeshayahu Ben Porat's book L'espion qui venait d'Israël, and the writing is credited to Raff and Max Perry. It was filmed mainly in Casablanca. Baron Cohen's performance was praised and earned a nomination for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film at the 77th Golden Globe Awards. It was criticised for historical inaccuracies; nothing independently confirms whom Cohen met among the Syrian elite.

DirectorGideon Raff
Production companyLégende Films
NetworkNetflix, Canal+
The Spy The Spy The Spy

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Cast

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Tim Seyfi Tim Seyfi Actor · 55 years old Sacha Baron Cohen Noah Emmerich Moni Moshonov Alona Tal Mourad Zaoui Alexander Siddig Waleed Zuaiter Arié Elmaleh Uri Gavriel Hadar Ratzon-Rotem Yael Eitan Nassim Lyes

Through different eyes

Series Binger A series devotee tracking character arcs, cast chemistry and season pacing.

Being a six-episode miniseries is The Spy's biggest advantage: the story is not stretched thin over seasons and stays focused on one man's transformation. Eli Cohen slipping into Damascus high society under a new identity and climbing step by step through its politics makes for a satisfying arc if you love watching a character evolve. Its short length means you can finish it comfortably over a few evenings. But because everything is built around the man at the centre, the supporting characters stay too faint in my view; his relationships with the people around him are far less memorable than the main story.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Telling a life whose ending history has already written means building tension from character rather than plot, and Gideon Raff's series largely passes that test through Sacha Baron Cohen's performance. That Golden Globe-nominated turn is the real centre of a story that rests on the weight of a double life. Raff's approach to the genre is quite classical: building a cover, earning trust, fearing exposure. That familiar order gives the series a solid skeleton, but at times it cannot move past the genre's conventions, and the well-known stops of the spy story produce recognition more than surprise. A solid but rather risk-averse piece for fans of the genre.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The Spy tells an espionage story set in early-1960s Damascus, drawn from the real life of Eli Cohen, regarded as a national hero in Israel. It is interesting to see the Middle East of that time through the way an intelligence war seeped into high society and politics. But it is worth remembering that the series was criticised for historical inaccuracies, and that nothing independently confirms whom Cohen met among the Syrian elite. In other words, this is not a documentary account but a dramatic interpretation based on a book that sees Cohen as a hero. Watched with that in mind, it can be a good starting point for anyone curious about the period.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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