Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal has the polished look and feel of prestige TV, with professional production and a high-profile cast to match. In the end, though, it feels thematically dated and a bit warmed over. I suppose that’s to be expected of a property that originated five decades ago, but I would have hoped a new adaptation would take more liberties to modernize the material.
Derived from a Frederick Forsyth novel of the same name, The Day of the Jackal is about Alex Duggan (Eddie Redmayne), an elite British sniper now working as an international assassin for hire. His political hit against a German politician in Munich, which required a near-impossible shot, gets him on the radar of British intelligence when the Germans come calling for assistance. Enter Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch), an MI6 firearms expert, who deduces that the rifle used in the assassination may have been crafted by a rogue Northern Irish gun designer on her radar. Bianca has the drive, guts, and expertise to bring down “the Jackal,” as he is soon codenamed. But Duggan, whose bag of tricks extends to disguise, infiltration, social engineering, and numerous other useful forms of tradecraft, proves an elusive, lethal target of her efforts, staying one step ahead of her as he moves on to his next assignment: the assassination of billionaire technologist Ulle Dag Charles (Khalid Abdalla), an activist with designs of disrupting the global economic order.
Like its primary characters, The Day of the Jackal launches with skill, confidence, and moxie. Combine that with gorgeous scenery and a globetrotting narrative, and it looks initially like a promising vehicle for international intrigue. Lynch has commanding presence as the determined hunter, while Redmayne is convincingly immersive as the near-superhuman Jackal, taking spy-fi competence porn to another level. Unfortunately, while the details are often clever, the general thrust of the cat-and-mouse narrative is entirely expected — without much nuance to the characters beyond their pathological determination to succeed at wildly difficult work. Redmayne is so good that he almost earns viewer sympathy as his heart of gold emerges, but then you remember the callous, remorseless wetwork, and find yourself asking why you’re rooting for him. Even more predictable is a subplot involving Duggan’s secret life in Spain, which saddles poor Úrsula Corberó in a thankless role as his duped wife Nuria, cursed to slowly uncover her husband’s deceit. These characters and tropes and subtexts might have been edgy in the 1970s, but seem rather shopworn today. The only contemporary flourish may be the show’s embedded critique of capitalism’s inherent corruption and toxicity, but even that doesn’t ring entirely true, relying on a unicorn-like “left-wing activist billionaire” who is committed to dismantling the global economic order that made him ultra-powerful. The Mr. Robot-like global conspiracy vibe propelling everything does afford Charles Dance appropriate boardroom villainy, and there’s professional work in the supporting cast from Nick Blood, Richard Dormer, Chukwudi Iwuji, and Lia Williams. But ultimately, the disappointingly nihilistic ending makes it all feel like much hugger-mugger about nothing.
