Murder mystery dramas have to be one of the most interesting genres out there. These stories, if presented well, allow the audience to open their minds and be insightful about the options and paths a murder investigation could take. A poorly crafted murder mystery can fall apart very quickly. Hard Broken, a Lebanese Netflix original, is the latter type. This murder mystery drama is an investigation into the violent death of a young, successful doctor. Directed by Elie F. Habib, the show was released on the streaming platform on September 20, 2023.
Hard Broken, a six-episode miniseries, follows the murder of a young doctor named Yasmine in the presence of her husband Adam, after which the killer has been on the run ever since. The killer also left the crime scene in her expensive car, leaving Yasmine to die. Although Adam barely survived the ambush, Yasmine's death leads to a full-fledged investigation by the local police to discover if this was a robbery gone wrong or if her death was a pre-motivated murder.
Stars: Muhanad Al-Hamdi, Talal Jurdi, Rasha Bilal
The police gather the names of the suspects after questioning Yasmine and Adam's friends, who are heartbroken over her sudden death. Adam is also dealing with the trauma of losing her and making sure that her daughter Sarah's life from now on is not severely affected. As local police arrest a suspect, Yasmine's past is also unearthed, which will determine the course of this investigation. The six episodes help the audience understand who the killer could be and what her motive must have been.
Hard Broken starts off on a strong note and makes us wonder if the creators put much time into the show's sound design. The rowdy performance followed by a dramatic murder sequence adds to the over-the-top nature of the show, and this is something that remains constant until the end. The first scene of “Hard Broken” allows the audience to understand what to expect from this murder mystery, which eventually turns into a revenge drama. There is no explanation behind why the show is titled “Hard Broken.”
The story investigation portion of the show is decent because it allows the audience to stay hooked to the narrative until the end. It keeps the intrigue about the identity of the murderer intact. The script, however, is a disappointment from start to finish. There is no structure given to the narrative. The back-and-forth between the current timeline and the flashback adds to the confusion. The script pattern is erratic because most of the time the characters speak only in allegories, making it difficult for the audience to follow the narrative. The show is filled with dialogue, to the point where the creators have added snippets of conversation just to avoid awkward silences. There are characters in Hard Broken who have been married or friends for a long time, but the dialogue between them seemed more like small talk.
The flashback sequences have been executed in the most sloppy way possible. The actors are forced to wear period-appropriate clothing for stories set in flashbacks, which in most of them look horrible. The production is in poor taste because they did not spend enough time or money to make the audience feel involved in the narrative. The exaggerated theatricality is reminiscent of Latin soap operas, where the public expects too many plot twists in the script, which is nevertheless so predictable that many saw the twists coming from afar.
The characters do not seem to care about the law and order of their city, which causes them to respond to the police during interrogations in a rude manner. We wonder why it took so long for the local investigation team to discover who the killer could be. None of the characters are credible. Most of them are still angry or feel like plotting against their own. Subplots are introduced, but the script forgets to explore them. It is revealed that Yasmine was pregnant at the time of her death. The plot hole here is that it didn't appear in the post-mortem report, which could have helped the police speed up the investigation. There was also no follow-up to this subplot.
The show's writers attempt to normalize a toxic relationship in which one spouse is constantly suspicious of his girlfriend, who later became his wife. This narrative is problematic to the core. The emotional abuse that this woman suffers is trivialized by everyone. Abuse in the form of harassment is used to justify the female character having to resort to infidelity. This infidelity is further used as justification for a trigger point.
Watch Hard Broken 2023 Tv Series Trailer
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