Peacock’s The Day Of The Jackal is a bloated misfire
One might argue that the thriller is not conducive to 10-episode seasons of television. While some have pulled off the limited-series version of the genre (Ripley comes to mind), it’s a classification built on tension that’s just incredibly difficult to maintain over such a long stretch of streaming TV. Take Peacock’s incredibly loose adaptation of The Day Of The Jackal, a prestige thriller that starts promisingly but spins its wheels through its midsection before culminating in a pair of clunky episodes that derail the production even further while threatening a second season. It’s as if someone wrote a two-hour film and was then forced to pull it way past its breaking point, resulting in not just repetition but nonsensical character behavior, a true sign that the writers have lost their way. Even they’re so bored by the end of this one that they’re taking random routes to get to an unearned cliffhanger of an ending.
The Day Of The Jackal should be a cat-and-mouse venture, pitting a tenacious MI6 agent against one of the most effective assassins in the world. Frederic Forsyth’s 1971 novel was about an attempted assassination of Charles de Gaulle that was loosely based on fact. It was successfully adapted into a 1973 film with Edward Fox as The Jackal and unsuccessfully turned into a 1997 film with Bruce Willis playing an unnamed assassin. (The latter has so little to do with the source that the writer and the director of the ’73 version lobbied to have the name changed.) All of that background gets us to the 2024 rendition of The Day Of The Jackal, which, again, deviates greatly from the original, although maybe not enough to warrant a campaign to change its title. (It’s also a bit humorous how often this show relies on cover tracks given that it’s a remake, ending episodes with takes on “Rid Of Me” and “Wicked Game.” Kind of like the show, neither is as good as the original.)
In this version, Eddie Redmayne turns up his creepy meter (which is always at a higher-than-average level) to play The Jackal, the kind of shadowy figure who shapes world politics through his assassinations but also has a wife (Úrsula Corberó) and kid at home who have no idea who he really is in the shadows. The cat to his mouse is Bianca (Lashana Lynch), the agent who finds his trail after he appears on the international radar when he commits a seemingly impossible hit, nailing his target from more than two miles away. (Someone later notes that a bullet takes about six to seven seconds to travel that far, meaning the Jackal basically shot someone in the future.) With this encounter, which also involves some nifty Mission: Impossible-esque make-up, The Day Of The Jackal sets up its titular character as the best of the best, but one of the show’s many problems is that it fails to back this up. Without spoiling, Jackal is arguably more lucky than good, although he does have a ruthlessness when it comes to using people and then disposing of them that can be chilling.
The biggest job in Jackal’s career comes when he’s hired to murder a tech giant (Kahlid Abdalla) before he unleashes a technology called River that will reveal the financial backing of powerful figures around the world, including business and political leaders who would rather not have their funding made public. Framing an obviously Elon Musk-esque figure as the savior of the free world through a release of the secret documents of power players is a bit politically dicey, indicative of a show that likes to play with real-world ideas without having much of anything to say about them.
The Day Of The Jackal works in fits and starts through the sheer power of the budget and team behind it. For example, the opening 20 minutes are tight, detailing the aforementioned initial hit that starts the dominoes falling for the season. It’s essentially a two-part assassination that opens with a Radiohead tune and closes with a great alt-J track. And it would have made a great first scene in a feature film. Now, Redmayne and Lynch do no wrong here. Yes, the former often goes for vacant emotions, but it fits the character of a man who has lost so much of his morality that he’s hollow inside. Lynch is excellent, but she’s forced to play family drama more than she should, and she too struggles with a character who hasn’t been given enough agency. For a show about an ace assassin and brilliant agent, neither of them are particularly good at their jobs.
The biggest problem with The Day Of The Jackal is how much the length of the season forces repetition in its plotting. It’s legitimately impossible to care as much about the crumbling of Jackal’s personal life as much as the show asks, and there is basically a whole hour devoted to crafting bespoke weapons to make it through security (yawn). And the show divides its talented leads way too much. Even in the finale, he’s off doing his own thing that she doesn’t even really know about. Instead of bringing them closer and closer together, the writing basically pushes them down parallel tracks until they’re forced to collide because the season finale demands it. You don’t sense the walls closing in because of Bianca, and that’s a serious problem. A cat-and-mouse tale doesn’t work if you don’t believe the cat.
That said, Redmayne and Lynch will walk away from this misfire totally unscathed. He’s beloved enough in the industry, and her star will continue to rise if there’s any Hollywood justice. And in two decades or so, someone will remake The Day Of The Jackal again (hopefully as a movie).
The Day Of The Jackal premieres November 14 on Peacock