At first one thinks that “Hit & Run” is about a car accident (hit) with a hit and run. But that’s just a distraction. Because it’s actually about the “&”, the “and” – that the series and each of its nine episodes have in the title.
Because the main character Segev has lost his “&”. His American wife Dani was killed in the aforementioned car accident, and the suspicion quickly arises that this accident was no coincidence: Professional attacks are also being carried out on Segev, does someone want to take revenge on the former member of the Special Forces? Could these attacks have anything to do with his time as a trainer in Mexico?
“Hit & Run” is an Israeli-American co-production, the series is set primarily in New York and Tel Aviv, the showrunner team consists of the producers of the series “Fauda” and “The Killing”. As in “Fauda”, the beefy Lior Raz not only co-invented the series, but also plays the leading role of the tough lone fighter who wants to avenge his murdered wife. Unlike this role, the international series production is not a one-man job, the cross-border cooperation also made the mixed team a motive.
What is exciting is what you can’t see
Because Israel and the USA are the countries with heavily frequented, but also the best protected borders in the world. A large number of economic and cultural connections have long since developed between Israel and the Palestinian territories, between the USA and Mexico, while at the same time the people on both sides of the respective border have remained strangers to one another. Israel and Palestine, USA and Mexico: What does this harmless, dividing and connecting “and” stand for?
Even the very successful opening credits of the series play motivically with the borders between countries, between water and land, city and sea, with images of streets, rivers, subway lines and passport photos. Such boundaries are everywhere, and how are you supposed to be sure you really know what’s going on on the other side? The creators said about their series that it was about trust. Between countries, but also between individual people. Segev quickly realizes that he didn’t know as much about his wife as he thought. But how can that be? How can you be married to someone, share your life, and yet be as strange to them as you are to the people on the other side of the border?
The scriptwriters cleverly interwoven political questions and the issues of strangeness and trust into the thriller plot, which is only sometimes a little too turned up. Time and again, filming is done from above, as if from the perspective of a drone, or from the nested angles of a surveillance camera. That is the view of the security authorities on people, a view that divides them also on one side or the other of a border. But that’s a deceptive perspective that suggests a knowledge that doesn’t exist. Because when can you be sure that you really know another person? Segev has yet to find out. And what is exciting is what you don’t see straight away.
Hit & Run, 9 episodes, on Netflix