No Man’s Land – Season 2(2025) – Intense

Genre: Spy thriller cum war movie

Platform: Lionsgate Play thru Amazon (Paid)

Time: 8 episodes x average 45 minutes

Languages: English. French. Arabic. Kurdish

Cast:  Mélanie Thierry (Anna Habert). Souheila Yacoub (Sarya Dogan). James Krishna Floyd (Nasser Yassin). Dean Ridge (Paul Wilkins).  Leo Hatton (Ellie Gordon). Zed Josef (Jake Al-Shami). Tasnim Cheham (Nisrine Dakka). Thibaut Evrard (Maximilien Weiser).

Plot:  Anna rescues a 12 year old girl Nisrine from being sold as a sex slave. Nasser is still being pressured by Anna to get information on the ISIS and but Paul shoots her dead. Sarya is back from France after recovering from her life threatening wounds. Max, a French journalist wonders, how she was airlifted to France , since he has heard rumors of a French woman code named Shamaran working for the all female YPJ military unit. Ellie, a student counsellor in Lubbock, Texas, sees a video of a masked jihadi with a strong Texan accent and is sure that it is her much younger former student Jake, with whom she had an intense affair. She gets in touch with Jake who instructs her how to come to Raqqa to be with him forever…

The disparate strands of the story are superbly and deftly woven together neatly into episodes which usually show how the entire ISIS operations affect everyone and has long term consequences.  Since Anna is shot dead by Paul, Nasser and he grow distant , though not at loggerheads. Nasser moves to the oil production unit, so that he can get information about how the oil money is moved around and get closer to the “money man” Jake. Nisrine, whose mother taught her French, wants to avenge her mother being sold into ISIS through a contractor.

The proceedings appear too complicated at first but are absolutely absorbing and ultimately disturbing to watch, especially the ISIS scenes. Elle is so madly in love with her student that she betrays the FBI team who want to apprehend him and reaches Raqqa to be with her Jake. At first , she is shocked at the instant justice doled out to homosexuals, pedophiles, and anyone who doesn’t agree with the ISIS way of life – being thrown alive from a building’s roof. Later she proves to be the perfect ISIS bride, even betraying one of the runaway women , to be sold as a slave. Her brainwashing is complete and these scenes are really disturbing.

The crisscross plot keeps moving at a blistering pace and yet we know all the strands that are in play. Paul’s brainwashing is also complete; he doesn’t want anything to do with the West and is now a complete ISIS acolyte, even ready to betray his childhood friend Nasser.

There is enough material here to keep us absorbed over the eight riveting and disturbing episodes (there is actually a warning before each episode about disturbing scenes). The oil extraction through very primitive and crude methods is shown fairly realistically.

There are some major goofs too – like women being allowed out alone without accompanying men. Usually this was not allowed with the all female al Khansa brigade questioning such lone women; in real life such lone women would have been immediately flogged or executed. Also the characters look too fresh and well bathed ; continuous field operations without any bathing or cleaning facilities would mean that they would all have been very dirty and filthy.

All these goofs can be overlooked as this fictional story is set around two incredibly disturbing realities of recent history that is only a decade old – the ISIS treating women as things to be sold and the all female YPJ taking up arms to fight them head on.

Overall a superb , disturbing view of recent historical events that pulls no punches

Historical background – 4 out of 5

Script – 4 out of 5

Story – 4 out of 5

Direction – 4 out of 5

Photography – 4 out of 5

Total – 4 out of 5