Funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen shows off his serious acting skills in 'The Spy'

It might seem odd for Sacha Baron Cohen to move from the satirical disguises he's used for comedic effect to playing a straight dramatic role in Gideon Raff's six-part Netflix series, The Spy. However, and pleasantly surprisingly, the Ali-G and Borat creator manages mostly to pull off a dramatically satisfying and emotionally layered performance as Israel's most famous spy, Eli Cohen.

Cohen was arrested by the Syrian government in 1965 and publicly executed in a square in Damascus. Before his capture he had lived for years as Kamel Amin Thaabet, a renowned and popular Arab businessman with close ties to the Syrian government who rose to hold the position of deputy minister of defence before his unmasking.

Over his career as a Mossad agent, Cohen passed the Israelis reams of useful information about the changes in the Syrian political regime and its military plans that helped his adopted country fend off several attacks. Cohen's story is well known both in Israel and abroad and has been the subject of several books.

Raff, the creator of Prisoners of War, the series on which the show Homeland is based, has a particular sympathy for the double life of agents and the emotional toll it takes on them. Here the action is divided between Cohen's debonair exploits first in Buenos Aires and later in Damascus and the stresses his secret life places on his wife, Nadia (Hadar Ratzon Rotem), and their children, as well as his Mossad handler, Dan Peleg (Noah Emmerich), who must deal with his protégé's over-enthusiasm and tendency to break the rules.

Cohen's exploits have a tinge of James Bond glamour as his identity as Thabbeth allows him to live a luxurious lifestyle and hang out with the rich and powerful, but there's a darker side to his increasingly demanding life that also begins to take its toll.

It's a testimony to Cohen's talents that he manages to create a performance that while it initially reminds you of his comic creations - particularly in a scene where he grows a moustache and raises the ghost of Borat - these are quickly erased thanks to his ability to make you believe in him as Eli Cohen.

Raff also manages to mostly keep the action ticking over with enough cliffhangers and tension to keep you watching to the inevitably tragic but heroic end of the show's six hours.

With Syria having been firmly in the side-eye of the world's attention for over a decade now, Cohen's story is also a welcome reminder of the history of the country and the backstabbing and political intrigue that created the Baathist regime still in power to this day.

There's also a nod to the rise of another form of Arab extremism in the guise of the involvement of wealthy property developer Mohammed Bin Laden (father to Osama) but this is only a footnote in a story that is firmly Cohen's and a tribute to the mountain of useable information that he supplied to the Israelis before his capture.

It's not always the most subtle or innovative exploration of the emotional tolls of spycraft, nor is it the most intelligent examination of the political stakes of its time, but it is easily watchable thanks to Cohen's performance, which is a sign that there may be more dramatic work in the actor's future.

MORE ABOUT ELI COHEN

Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1924. He grew up there and became involved in Israeli-led operations to help smuggle Jews out of Egypt to Israel during the era of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s.

The Israeli Defence Force recruited him in 1957. He worked as a counterintelligence analyst, a job that bored him and saw him attempt to join Mossad - which initially rejected him. He was later recruited by the agency and sent to Buenos Aires in 1961, where he began to assume his cover identity as exiled Syrian businessman Kamel Amin Thaabet.

He moved to Damascus in 1962 and made his way up the ranks of the Syrian political elite. During this time he passed information to his Israeli handlers, eventually rising to a position within the Syrian ministry of defence before he was exposed as a spy, arrested and executed in 1965.

The return of his remains to Israel has been the subject of an ongoing and protracted battle between Israel and Syria since his death, but Cohen is remembered as a national hero in Israel.