A sleek and suspenseful modern take on Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 thriller (filmed previously in 1973 and 1997) about a notorious international assassin, Peacock‘s nail-biting 10-episode version of The Day of the Jackal forgoes a real-life target (in the original, former French President Charles De Gaulle) in favor of fictional ones. This ratchets up the tension as, in classic Hitchcock fashion, we’re never quite sure if we’re supposed to be rooting for the master sniper to get caught or to succeed.
Much of this ambiguity is rooted in Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne’s compelling, enigmatic performance as the disarmingly boyish and meticulously lethal Jackal, a master of disguise who demands a high price for his risky assignments—and watch your back if you refuse to pay. His adversary: dogged MI6 agent Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch), who crisscrosses Europe following leads to her elusive prey. The action, and there’s plenty of it, zooms from Munich to London to Paris to exotic locations in Estonia and Croatia, with a detour to Manhattan to meet the sinister forces (most notably Charles Dance) behind the Jackal’s latest gambit.
Both players in this exciting cat-and-mouse game are torn between their jobs and their personal lives, which feels a bit trite in Bianca’s domestic subplot, though it adds to our fascination with the Jackal when we learn he has a family sequestered in a gorgeous Spanish villa, unaware of his bloody trade. Once his wife (Úrsula Corberó) begins to suspect the worst about her absent mate, snooping where she shouldn’t, it becomes clear that she may be his Achilles’ heel, a dangerous distraction from his already perilous mission.
“In our game, you can’t have a wife,” warns one of the Jackal’s associates, a master at crafting hard-to-detect hardware. “Especially if you fall in love with them.”
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As the net tightens, while the Jackal plans a complicated hit on a tech visionary (The Crown‘s Khalid Abdalla) who aims to disrupt the world’s financial markets, the series indulges conspiracy theories, including the hunt for a mole in the upper echelon of Britain’s intelligence services, amid our suspicion that even should the Jackal be successful, his clients will see him as a loose end in need of elimination.
The twists are generally solid, including the Jackal’s surprising military backstory and a game-changing shocker toward the end that caused this jaded viewer’s jaw to drop in delighted disbelief. Not since Netflix‘s taut Bodyguard has a show done such damage to the edge of one’s seat.
The Day of the Jackal, Series Premiere (five episodes), Thursday, November 14, Peacock
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