Mirage - Gefährliche Lügen

Frankly, I started way it without any expectation. Just the storyline seemed intriguing. I know there are some plot holes, but considering the budget and production house it's pretty decent outcome. Stars gave solid performance, the locations were eye catching. Story of global corporate espionage ring added with a long lost love interest added the spice that was needed to carry the show.

Might not be a HBO/Netflix/Prime production standard but considering everything, it was decent. May be more than decent! Figure it out !

And all this is served in Abu Dhabi with a German touch... Should/could be something for everyone, but the result is another thriller where renegades and "unsophisticated" specialists attempt to avoid a disaster. As often in (mostly) U. S. series, lenient people become heroes overnight, getting ready for chases and weapons within some hours, and viewers are "confused" using mysterious events and clips from the past... The venue was evidently chosen for their contribution to the series budget :) - although it is exotic and beautiful and makes many to (re)visit the Emirates again.

As for the cast, most performers were unknown to me, except Grégory Fitoussi, but even his role was too ordinary. The leading performances were not too impressive and several characters did not bring additional value to the Series (e.g. Zack and his teen friends). Thus, Mirage has some kind of entertaining value and 6 episodes is not too long, but as there are hundreds of more interesting related series out there, it is not a creation that brings you wow! On novel effects.

First of all, I can't believe some reviewers complain that the protagonists are in their 50s. How old was Tom Cruise or Daniel Craig when they made their last action film? Or is it only an issue when an actress is the protagonist? Marie-Josee Croze was perhaps 48 when she made _Mirage_, and a stunning 48 at that. More importantly, she is still an amazing and mercurial actress, born to play highly compromised women.

The first episode of this miniseries is extremely well shot. The overhead shots, swirling camera motion, the tsunami seen as a reflection in a window superimposed on a disbelieving Croze, are all excellent. Later on the directing gets bogged down in the thriller plot-twists and increasingly relies on hand-held (like "24"), but once in a while there are still well composed, stunning images. And the Abu Dhabi skyline is always an eye candy. I assume the producers get a lot of concessions from the UAE government. The series mostly avoids criticism of UAE, presenting it as a Westernize seaside paradise. It takes pains to depict the police as mostly good guys, half of whom are women who do their own driving!

Unlike "24", but like most European espionage films these days, the subject matter is industrial spying, not terrorism. Too bad the writing is mediocre at best. (Compare this with another Canadian-European coproduction called "Thanksgiving.") The two male protagonists are jerks, but usually jerks have a tiny bit of charisma. As for the villains, they are not just uncharismatic; they are among the worst marksman ever seen. The main reason to see "Mirage" is the ever young and unpredictable Croze draped in head scarves, or cocking her head forward like a panther ready to pounce. It would so much better if she is cast as the presumed-dead spouse and spy. She has been wonderful in revenge films (_Another Silence_) and in conflicted roles set in the Middle East (_Collision_, _The Forgiven_).

Overall the story is a giant meh. It tries very hard to be important and thrillerish, but ends up being generic and tiresome. The actors are not helping it at all, because they ooze apathy at any given moment, regardless how tense things are becoming. The dialogue is simple, to the point, with no useless emotional elaborations, space for character development, witty lines or anything that would put you in danger of feeling remotely connected or positive to what you're seeing. Basically, everyone just wants to move things along and get them over with.

BUT the desert scenes are beautiful. The shades, the colours, the buildings, the atmosphere they create. It might be a deeply personal thing, I just have something for large spaces filled with pale sand. And oh my goodness - the soundtrack!!! You can just watch the desert shots and listen to the soundtrack, and this could be your ultimate jam! Call me insane, but these are the two things I give 6/10 for. The rest can be recycled.

Simply put - nothing is believable, unless you are a very simple person and you desperately wish that the world would work the way it's presented in this series.

These people work in the field of security? Believe it or not. Spies? Sure. Tsunami? What? 15 years, sure?

Who wrote this? Who directed this? We know who acted in this, and that's a shame. Yeah, it was the Viking dude camouflaged with a baseball cap that didn't fit his head, and then a bunch of various amateurs.

Despite of all this I managed to watch this till the end. This is because I've watched everything else. Already during the first episode, I had to switch to the moron mode so that I'd get through it, but this disaster continued with even worse plot twists one after other and it looked like it every episode was written a day before they shot it, but hey what can you do if you don't have anything else to do.

Clive Standen, I'm going to forgive you this time and hope you're going to make it. That's purely because of your high level of coolness in the Vikings. Like in the X-files, I want to believe.