THE GOLDEN HOUR (Het Gouden Uur) - CRITICAL REVIEW
Review of Dutch TV Series on NPO3 and Netflix (SPOILERS)
Overview
Title: The Golden Hour (Het Gouden Uur)
Year: 2022
Nationality: Dutch
Commissioner: NPO3
Format: 6 x 45
Genre: Thriller / Drama / Police
Logline: As terror attacks unfold in Amsterdam, a Dutch Police officer of Afghan origin has the complex task of stopping the attacks whilst his childhood links to the attacker surface.
Synopsis:
MARDIK, 40s, a Dutch police officer of Afghan descent, epitomizes successful assimilation. However, his stable life is challenged when the Police’s Internal Investigations Unit (IIU) inquire about his recent trip to Afghanistan. Mardik is offended by the line of questioning alone.
MALIK (50s), a community worker of Afghan descent, urgently informs Mardik that his childhood best friend from Afghanistan, FAYSAL (40s), is in Amsterdam. Malik expresses deep concern, suspecting Faysal of harbouring nefarious intentions. Flashbacks reveal Faysal (7) witnessed the murder of his parents by Afghan militants while trying to flee Afghanistan. Mardik (7), protesting the murder, was shot, and then saved by Malik (30s). The best friends were separated at this point.
Meanwhile, Faysal has enlisted FRENCHMEN of North African descent to carry out a horrifying attack, driving a van through crowds, causing massive casualties.
Learning of the attacks, Mardik is instinctively compelled to investigate Faysal. Upon visiting his apartment, a bomb detonates, tragically killing Mardik's colleague. Given the IIU’s suspicions, Mardik critically decides to flee the scene, seeking answers to prove his innocence, rather than staying to face questioning. Mardik finds himself a fugitive.
Faysal and his squad continue vicious attacks across Amsterdam, including shooting hundreds of shoppers at a mall. The police’s attention is divided between the attacks and locating their very own Mardik. ILGA (40s), an IIU police officer, pursues Mardik using extreme methods such as kidnapping his wife. Meanwhile, Mardik tracks down locations Faysal has used.
Flashbacks reveal that after his parents' death, Faysal is taken in by Afghan militants. Conversely, Mardik is rescued by American soldiers after he was shot by Afghan militants. A profound backdrop to their contrasting loyalties in later life.
The season climaxes with Faysal preparing a massive bombing. Mardik, having rescued his wife, locates the bomb's site. On a rooftop, Mardik corners Faysal with a gun. Faysal challenges Mardik's identity and allegiance to the West. An intense and emotional confrontation culminates in Mardik fatally shooting Faysal to prevent the bomb's detonation.
To end the season, Mardik is interviewed, still denying any involvement in the attacks. A revelation emerges: the bomb was transported by someone clothed as a police officer, suggesting a potentially internal conspiracy. Questions remain around Mardik’s involvement and the full extent of Faysal’s network. Season 2?
Critique:
IMBALANCE
To summarise this series, one would have to use the word imbalanced. It is imbalanced in its concentration. It concentrates disproportionately on scenes, characters, and conflicts that aren’t driving the primary story arc of the series. Such imbalance resulted in the core logic, motivations, objectives, backstories, and interrelations of the protagonist (Mardik) and antagonist (Faysal) being radically absent, and as a result, flawed.
The way I have written the synopsis does not reflect the gaps and inconsistencies that a viewer will experience. The synopsis concentrates on the primary arc driving the story, whereas in practice, screentime is all too often allocated to plot lines that can only be characterised as “fillers” when you zoom out and address the core arc of the tale at hand.
This show could have chosen to adopt a “choral” format where several stories are explored, like Netflix’s French mini-series Notre Dame: La Part du Feu. It doesn’t however, because the “fillers” are not arcs with depth, and have taken valuable time away from the core story. For example, one of the terrorists who has significant screen time, has no more than a handful of lines which reveal only that a) he will pay for his studies with the money he’s paid and b) just before he’s killed, he claims all he ever wanted was to “return home”. Thus, his arc is fully left up to one’s imagination, despite the fact he’s present throughout the show.
UPHOLDING LOGIC
A lack of logic / motivation clarity is first best demonstrated by Mardik’s decision to flee the scene of his colleague’s death. One assumes he flees as he believes the IIU will accuse him of being linked to the terrorists. But based on what evidence? The only lead the IIU have is pictures of “Afghan men” pinned on Mardik’s walls at home. We later learn this is simply his family tree. So instead of explaining that to the IIU (their sole discovery across the entire series!), he prefers to go on the run? It doesn’t quite make sense, and the point here is that it easily could. For example, pictures of FAYSAL and MARDIK together would be worthy of real suspicion, how about even a recent one during his visit to Afghanistan? Instead, there is absolutely no link between the two surfaced throughout the season since they parted ways at the age of 7.
To think that we only address Faysal’s motivation in the season finale, where he accuses Mardik of ignoring the West’s destruction of Afghanistan. Which means we watch nearly 6 episodes without knowing what drives our antagonist. To add to this lack of clarity, Faysal’s parents were killed by AFGHAN MILITANT’s, and not the West. The only explanation to his loyalty is a single flashback where Afghan Militant’s take him off the street, which comes incredibly late in the series. We are not forced to feel Faysal’s anger towards the West, it is merely assumed.
Character’s motivations being unclear is a consistent theme amongst supporting characters: Malik (50s) throughout feels guilty and to blame for Faysal’s terror attacks, to the point where he tries to commit suicide. However, we are never told what his actual relation was or is with Faysal. As far as we’re concerned, they lost contact when Faysal was 7. Could we not, for example, be told that Faysal is Malik’s nephew? So we can start to believe in a implicating connection between them.
There is a balance between answering core questions and leaving elements unclear to generate intrigue, and here, it is incredibly imbalanced by failing to answer core questions which would help us buy into the characters and their objectives.
DISTRACTIONS
When previously referring to imbalance, I mentioned the “filler” elements that polluted this series’ screentime. This consisted primarily of the attacks themselves. For example, a single attack, a mall shooting, spanned over nearly two whole episodes before the police arrived. Indeed, the attacks in the context of this show are significant, but the attack in itself doesn’t drive the plot enough to warrant spanning over nearly a quarter of the show. It was practically a reconstitution of a terrorist attack, watching victims die one by one. Don’t get me wrong, the graphic nature was excruciating to watch in an ultimately entertaining way, but after a while it stops driving the story incrementally. The same way we wouldn’t keep revisitting a boxing match in a film over a full 36-minutes of an episode (12 rounds of 3 minutes).
The Dutch armed response units are consistently portayed as extremely imcompetent. Viewers may find this inaccurate, but when watching fiction I rarely take offence to non-accurate depictions. Having said that, their incompetence did sometimes extend beyond believability, and that negatively impacts one’s engagement in the plot, serving as a further distraction to the resolution of the conflict.
SUMMARY
I would describe the viewing experience as a frustrating one, given the constant questioning of the characters and plot that one is forced into. The graphic nature of the attacks is the most entertaining aspect, but even that is overdone.
The primary strength of the series is its premise. The harsh beginnings of two best friends in a war-torn nation, coming full circle in Europe but on opposite sides of the law and morality. Regretfully however, the potential of the premise is not fulfilled since the central protagonist-antagonist relationship is bizarrely unexplored, with them only meeting twice over six episodes. The only flashbacks / context about their relationship is fickle and all happen at the age of 7.
A stronger execution of such a premise is demonstrated by Norweigan Netflix series Gangs of Oslo, where a police officer is forced to live a double life as a friend from his past leads a criminal entreprise. In this show, the central protagonist-antagonist relationship is explored from the start, and hence serves as a true story engine.
My overall rating: 2/5 - visually powerful, but emotionally and structurally incoherent.
Do I recommend? It is the first time I have seen an Afghan protagonist in a European show, and hence I was intrigued, but I am not sure this will be a USP for most. I don’t recommend this show if your minimum standards are a coherent story, but I would recommend it if you are interested in a graphic and action-packed portrayal of modern-day barbaric terrorism.
Final note: Of course, my views are solely my own and may differ from other viewers. I may even have made mistakes when forming my opinion (notably because it’s a Dutch-language show, which I followed with subtitles, which are rarely perfect).