HOSTAGES - Reviewed, out now on DVD

Synopsis: The night before a high profile operation on the Prime Minister, the surgeon due to perform the procedure, Yael, is surprised at her family home by four masked men. The gang quickly take control of Yael and her family and order her to kill the Prime Minister on the operating table in the morning, or else they will kill her family, who are now their helpless hostages.
Yael does her best to manage the situation, and buy her precious family some time, by injecting the Prime Minister with medication to disrupt his nervous system – giving her medical grounds to delay the operation. Under constant pressure from her captors to perform the fatal surgery, Yael lives daily with the very real and growing threat to her family. An atmosphere of increasing mistrust and paranoia develops between the hostages and the Kidnappers whilst Yael balances the preservation of her family against the life of the Prime Minister in this gripping and twisting ten-part part drama.

Hostages the Israeli TV show recently aired on BBC4 had just been released by ARROW NOIR and what a great show it is! Following in the footsteps of many releases from Arrow Noir such as The Bridge and The Killing, Arrow have expanded the range to include this Israeli TV show.

The 1st of 10 episodes opens up with 4 hostages tied to chairs and gagged whilst being watch by masked hostage takers heavily armed, we then flick back to 12 hours earlier and get to see the events that lead up to where it all started and the reasoning behind the hostage takers, At 1st it may appear that it all is to do with the mother Dr Yael Danon (Ayelet Zurer) as the synopsis above says that she is about to perform surgery on the prime minister and finds out her family has been kidnapped and is ordered to kill the prime minister.

It all really starts to kick in once she finds out and she is a great strong character who is equally as cunning if not more so that the hostage takers, along the course of episodes the hostages develop signs of Stockholm Syndrome where in bond is formed between them, but does this weaken the hostages or the hostage takers?

Well you'll just have to watch it to see! I found that with 10 episodes it was just the right length, all the performances are solid especially from Ayelet Zurer and as with all classic TV series its one of those let me just watch one more, so be warned you could be in for a few late nights!

With over the past few years with a surge of TV shows becoming huge such as 24, Breaking Bad, Game of thrones and indeed worldwide classics as The Killing and The Bridge, Hostages is easily up there for me, It has a ton of twists and turns that you you won't see coming, Brilliant cinematography and refreshing and twisted at the same time,

A must see,

8/10

Jonny T