Jornada de Heróis

Found this on the off chance when browsing netflix; pleasantly surprised; thought it was well written and good acting; enjoyed it

It is a good show, not perfect, but good by many standards. It has mystery, thriller and good acting. The pace is also great, not too slow and not too fast. Considering how much bad shows are out there, this is one is literally perfection. Highly recommended.

The first half of the series was quite good but I felt the last 4 episodes became very predictable and tedious. If I hadn't invested so much time in getting to the half way point I'd have given up. As long as you go into this with fairly low expectations you'll be ok !!

This Israeli series opens with a group of soldiers in Lebanon; they are on their way home but events lead to the death of their leader. Eleven years later the four survivors; Aviv Danino, Dov 'Dubi' Ashkenazi, Yakir 'Benda' Ben-David and Dotan 'Himmler' Friedman have each gone their own way. Benda, who is now running a restaurant in Bogota sees a familiar face in a photograph in the local paper; Yael 'Yaeli' Ashkenazi. Yaeli is Dubi's sister and Aviv's girlfriend was last seen nine years previously and was presumed dead following a traffic accident in the Colombian jungle. Aviv, Dubi and Himmler fly to Bogota and meet up with Benda. Here they set about trying to find more about the picture; information that will ultimately lead them into the jungle where they will face some dangerous characters.

I really enjoyed this series. It got off to a fine start with the scenes in Lebanon; these were tense and served to introduce the four main characters and explain why they are as they are. Once the main story gets underway there is plenty of tension as the quartet face dangers in Colombia. There is a decent amount of action. The use of flashbacks to show us key moments of characters' lives is effective and doesn't distract from the main story. The cast does a solid job throughout. There are some flaws; for example the characters make a lot of unnecessary noise in the jungle even after they know there are armed individuals nearby who are looking for them; hard to believe of anybody... impossible for characters with military training (apart from the one accidentally drugged). The locations; particularly those in Colombia look fantastic. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody wanting a good drama with solid action.

These comments are based on watching the series in Hebrew/Spanish with English subtitles.

I feel a lot of reviewers missed the point of this drama: this is essentially a story about trauma and how four friends became a brotherhood that were there for each other and had a bond that I am sure most of us would envy. And, yes, some of them did fall out but their coming back together depicts real life well and shows us the meaning of humanity.

And I cannot disagree with a lot of reviewers who said this series was a few episodes too many. And I get the disparity between the emotionality of the mother language of those actors who are Israeli and those who are South American when it is dubbed into English and whatever language you are watching it in your country.

But this is to take from Netflix bringing mainly great drama to the masses. You can't have it every way.

I sometimes think viewers overlook the central theme of a drama series or film by being too narrow in their judgment of the acting, script, direction, plot holes and yes, language dubbing. Criticise these if you must but always bear in mind the bigger picture.

And no pun intended.