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I will fully admit that I’d never even heard ofThe Day of the Jackaluntil I knew I would have to write this review. I have essentially no experience with the original 1971 novel byFrederick Forsyth(who’s also a producer on this), nor its 1973 film adaptation starringEdward Fox; so I cannot speak to how the series compares to either of those.
What I can speak to is that the show’s main hook of a lone assassin being pursued by an expert intelligence officer is a strong one in and of itself, especially with actors as talented asEddie RedmayneandLashana Lynchin the lead roles. I can also speak to the fact that the show they’ve made does not live up to that potential in any manner whatsoever.
What isThe Day of the Jackalabout?
The Day of the Jackalfocuses on two main parallel storylines. The Jackal, played by Eddie Redmayne, is an elusive assassin who makes a living taking out high-profile targets at the behest of the highest bidder. After a particularly impressive kill, an anonymous client reaches out to the Jackal with an incredibly risky job, but one with a payout so good he would never have to work again.
However, things aren’t that simple for the Jackal due to our other main character, Bianca, played by Lashana Lynch. She’s an MI6 arms specialist who recognizes Jackal’s unique equipment and uses that as the starting point to unravel the mystery and conspiracy of his true identity. With both leads on a ticking clock to finish the job, Jackal works harder than ever to take down his target while Bianca relentlessly pursues him across Europe in a life-or-death game of cat-and-mouse.
How isThe Day of the Jackal?
The biggest problem withThe Day of the Jackalis its pacing. A cat-and-mouse thriller of this type should feel brisk and exciting as we quickly move from location to location, watching the two adversaries go toe-to-toe. But while that location variety is certainly there, the end result of stretching out the story from a two-hour movie to a ten-episode series is that it frequently feels like it’s spinning its wheels, waiting to get to the good parts. And that’s before you get to how padded each episode is with extraneous subplots centered on tertiary and frankly uninteresting side characters whose storylines barely connect to the main plot, if at all.
Moreover, the two main plots feel too separated for a meaningful adversarial relationship to develop. So much of the thrill of these types of stories is seeing how the protagonist and antagonist match wits with one another, frequently developing a more personal rivalry and a strange sense of respect for the other. Think Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty or even Batman and the Joker. But here, Bianca and Jackal barely ever interact with one another.
The Day of the Jackal: Cast, Release Date, Trailer, Story, and Everything We Know So Far
For the most part, Jackal’s relationship with Bianca begins and ends with seeing her as just another obstacle to overcome, and the rest of his story is simply him doing his best to complete his work as an assassin. In Bianca’s story, Jackal is simply another killer she needs to stop. Again, this is little more than a job for either her or Jackal. These two don’t really have nor do they develop any personal quarrels, and that feels like a missed opportunity.
To be fair, Bianca and Jackal’s solo storylines do attempt to create more personal stakes for the two. Jackal has a remarkably fleshed-out backstory that the show goes deeper and deeper into as it goes on, while Bianca’s storyline gives us a glimpse into her personal life and the psychological toll her job takes on both her and her loved ones. But even then, by the end, I still felt like I barely knew who these people were outside of their jobs and a handful of personal relationships that aren’t particularly deep.
“The thing that scared me most”: Eddie Redmayne’s Biggest Fear While Playing His Oscar-winning Role Kept Him Up All Night a Day Before Filming Began
Some of that might go back to the other major issue withThe Day of the Jackal: it’s thematically and politically toothless. For all the marketing talk about updating and reimagining the story for a contemporary political landscape, the show rarely takes advantage of that and often seems actively afraid to, save for the welcome diversity in its casting.
A scene where Bianca has to bring someone in from a “radical leftist protest” doesn’t clarify what is being protested, why it is being protested, or whether or not Bianca thinks said protest is justified. Jackal’s targets are frequently politicians and tech billionaires, but the show doesn’t state what these politicians and billionaires believed in or were trying to accomplish beyond “things that are good” in a generic sense. It’s a show built on political themes and imagery that is too cowardly to have any character take a substantial political stance on literally anything.
IsThe Day of the Jackalworth watching?
The Day of the Jackalis a show with good performances from a great cast, solid camera work, and action scenes, and an excellent narrative hook that squanders that potential on a dull and lifeless story that drags out key plot points for way too long, can’t commit to a theme, and can’t seem to gives its characters any depth, nuance, or even things to do beyond the basic demands of the plot.
I don’t generally like being this negative. I wish I liked this more because I respect what everyone was trying to do, and I think the two leads especially are genuinely great, both in general and in this show specifically. Lashana Lynch, in particular, is someone I think Hollywood has criminally underused, and it’s nice to see her shine in a lead role like this. I just wish said lead role could’ve been in a better show thanThe Day of the Jackal.
The Day of the Jackalpremieres on Peacock on November 14. All ten episodes reviewed.
The Day of the Jackal Review — Cat-and-Mouse Thriller Fails To Be Exciting
Callie Hanna
Articles Published :136
Callie Hanna is an up-and-coming writer, aspiring actor, and full-time nerd. She grew up in a small town in Delaware and was instilled with a love for superheroes, science fiction, and all things geeky from an early age. When she’s not catching up with her comically large backlog of movies, games, shows, and comics, Callie can be found working, writing, chatting with friends, or browsing the dying husk of Twitter.
