Not that it's planned, but it looks like I'm progressing in watching movies from countries I've never have before. Not long ago it was the Indian series called Operation Safed Sagar: The Untold Story of the Kargil War and last week I watched The Deep State, which is a Kuwaiti action, crime series.
The reason why I gave this series a chance is that, first of all, I've never seen a Kuwaiti movie, and being from the Middle East, I knew it's going to be very different from what I'm used to with, in every possible way. Culture, habits, interests, political and religious situation, just to name a few things I can think of. I'm trying to diversify my waiting list and include movies and series from countries I'm not usually watching anything from, to see what they have to offer. It's good to think outside the box, put aside your prejudice and give a chance to new offers. If you see they can't make movies, then yes, step aside and avoid them, but otherwise, keep an open mind.
[](The Deep State)
Two intelligence officers seek to acquit the Minister of National Security After he was involved in a warplane deal that caused the martyrdom of one of the pilots. Evidence leads them to Cuba, where they discover that the minister they are trying to acquit is the real criminal.
This is the storyline from IMDB and from these lines you can figure out it's not the usual series. The word martyrdom kind of surprised me as not many are using it for people passing away in certain conditions. We sure don't and caught my attention.
The series starts with a military operation that goes bad and and ends with a military warplane crashing, killing the pilot. As the pane was not implicated in a fight, an investigation starts, to find out what went wrong. As part of the investigation, two intelligence officers are tasked to go to Cuba, where the pain originated from and discover the truth. Obviously things are not straight forward, nothing goes smoothly, they get into all kinds of situations and their families are not spared either.
All this sounds intriguing and would spark the curiosity of every fan of this genre, myself included and honestly, was happy to watch it, but my joy started to turn pretty quickly, seeing the two clowns that got the lead roles.
I don't know where they got these two actors from, my best guess is they went to the farmers market and asked those who couldn't sell their products to play the role. The joke of the story is that according to some comments, this was a high budget movie, which is shocking to say the least. If this is the best money can buy in Kuwait, then the situation is.... terrible. The acting is like filming people on the street who have no clue about acting. Nothing more.
Any decent movie director would hire a consultant specializing in military operations, to teach the actors how to behave, how to handle themselves in different situations and their weapons as well, so they don't become laughing stocks, like these two. Some scenes were really painful to watch and I feel sorry for real intelligence officers, if they watch this series. It's a joke what these actors did and they say they are the best.
The story wasn't bad, maybe it could have been shorter as there was no need to drag it out for so long, but that's a personal opinion. It was full of twists and turns, as expected, but it I needed to control my disappointment.
Some of the episodes were filmed in Cuba, which is a plus as you get to see those emblematic cars and buildings we already know, but they also showed the level of poverty in the country. This is a plus, even though it hurts to see the terrible living conditions, but at least they kept it close to reality.
All in all I don't regret watching it, at least I can say I have watched a Kuwaiti series, but they need to get better as such acting won't take them far. I don't know, maybe I have high expectations and this is ok in Kuwait, but trust me, they need to do better. I'm curious if I'll have the chance to watch another Kuwaiti movie or series, to see if they can do better. I'd love to.
Finally, I need to mention that obviously I don't speak Arabic, so I chose English dubbing, which was acceptable. Another detail that it important to mention is that I was glad they didn't push religion or state propaganda too much, which is a plus.
Rating: 50/100
