Stream It Or Skip It: ‘When Heroes Fly’ On Netflix, Where Israeli Army Vets Search For A Woman In Colombia

Whether you realize it or not, Israel has been a fertile ground for high-quality TV drama over the past decade, though much of it has come to the U.S. in the form of remakes of Israeli hits (Homeland, Hostages, In Treatment). But Netflix has decided to purchase international rights of one of Keshet International’s hits directly and add it to its international offerings. When Heroes Fly isn’t your typical war-and-espionage fare. Read on to find out more…

WHEN HEROES FLY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: News footage of the 2006 battle between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, then we cut to a scene in Tel Aviv of a woman watching the sunset while talking to her boyfriend on her phone.

The Gist: Aviv Danino (Tomer Capon) is speaking to his girlfriend Yael “Yaeli” Ashkenazi (Ninet Tayeb), telling her how much he misses her and that he’ll be back from his unit’s deployment to Lebanon the next day. Yael is part of a reserve commando unit led by the well-respected Azulay (Dan Moor). They’re sent on a patrol in an area where they find a disable Israeli tank. When Azulay calls into central command, he finds out that they’ve sent a drone to destroy it, because they don’t want the sensitive information in it to land in Hezbollah hands.

But two surprises happen: They find live soldiers in the tank, and while rescuing them, Hezbollah soldiers ambush them. Azulay gets gravely injured, and, knowing the drone is on the way, instructs Aviv to leave him there and take the patrol away from the scene. Aviv reluctantly agrees.

After this, we cut back and forth between 2006 and 2017. Aviv is in therapy due to extreme PTSD regarding both that last battle and the fact that Yaeli died in an auto accident a couple of years later. He can’t sleep, he can’t hold a job, and he lives with his mother. The relationship between him and his platoon-mates Dotan “Himler” Friedman (Michael Aloni), Yaeli’s brother Dov “Dubi” Ashkenazi (Nadav Netz), and Yakir “Benda” Ben-David (Moshe Ashkenazi) has fractured, mainly because Himler and Dubi felt that Aviv left Azulay behind to die.

Benda has moved to Bogota, Colombia, and one day he sees a familiar face on the front page of a local newspaper — it looks like Yaeili. Aviv tries to talk to Dubi about it, but Dubi dismisses Aviv as off his rocker. And Himler, a successful businessman, wants nothing to do with him. However Benda keeps pushing, visiting the photographer that took the picture to find more evidence. When the photographer gives Benda and his wife Maria (Vanessa Chaplot) the bum’s rush, they break in and find the photo they need, prompting Aviv to make a plan to go to Colombia.

Our Take: When Heroes Fly, created by Omri Givon (both the Israeli and American versions of Hostages) and was a hit when it aired in Israel in 2018. Keshet International, the mega-company that developed the show and sold it to Netflix, knows from its military and spy dramas; after all, they’re the ones who brought Homeland to the U.S. And that quality can be seen in the first episode of this show.

Givon is given 87 minutes to lay out the preliminaries for this story (the remaining 9 episodes are a more-standard 41-47 minutes), and he uses the time well, establishing the relationship among these soldiers when they were in active duty in 2006, and the battle that ultimately splits this close-knit group apart plays out with a minimum of confusion. It also helps that, even though the majority of the remaining action will take place in 2017, we still skip back to find out what exactly fractured this group as well as how Aviv slowly started losing his grip on his mental health in the aftermath.

Another interesting aspect is that the former soldiers are on another mission, which Givon can focus on instead of moving all over the place with stories. The stories will come out of the relationship between these four soldiers and how they reacted to the incident that killed their friend and leader all those years ago. Also, what happened to Yaeli, and who knew what, will drive a lot of the action.

One more thing: The show tries to show some balance, and that anything can happen in the fog of war. It’s not putting down clear lines that make the Israelis the heroes and Muslims the enemies (at least not yet). That sort of restraint has been in short supply in a lot of Keshet’s war and espionage-related shows, so to see it here is refreshing.

Sex and Skin: Nothing so far.

Parting Shot: Benda e-mails the photo of Yaeli to Aviv, who sees it and sheds a tear knowing that she’s alive.

Sleeper Star: We’re not sure what incentive Himler has to go to Colombia to find Yaeli, it could be because he’s been given a terminal medical diagnosis. But Aloni plays him as a guy who’s successful but has skeletons. It’ll be intriguing to figure out what those skeletons are.

Most Pilot-y Line: In a lengthy scene with his therapist, Aviv says “Time means nothing to me” when discussing the anniversary of either the fateful firefight or Yaeli’s death, we’re not sure which.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re hoping this is more psychological thriller than an “Us vs. Them” chase series. The first episode of When Heroes Fly gives us some promise that it’ll be the former and not the latter.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch When Heroes Fly on Netflix