Eddie Redmayne is one of our most curious actors. The British star, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” takes big swings that sometimes are captivatingly odd. (If you haven’t seen his bellowing villain in “Jupiter Ascending,” from 2015, check it out.) But Redmayne’s innate slipperiness is well-suited to his latest role: an unknowable and deadly assassin in “The Day of the Jackal,” premiering Thursday on Peacock with five episodes (of 10).
You spend much of the series wondering what exactly makes the Jackal tick. Is he simply a monstrous, unfeeling killer? A family man in disguise? A straight-up psychopath? Redmayne is fascinatingly coy — warm one moment and then haunting the next.
The series is an adaptation of the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel, which was also made into a film in 1973. Created by Ronan Bennett, this version sets the action in the present day and opens with Redmayne’s gun for hire targeting a German politician. This piques the interest of a MI6 officer named Bianca (Lashana Lynch), who has an almost perverse fascination with weapons.
As Bianca runs around trying to uncover the Jackal’s identity, the assassin gets a new high-profile assignment. These two characters operate on parallel tracks, just missing one another time and time again. If Redmayne’s portrayal of the Jackal is steeped in mystery, Lynch’s take on Bianca is a stirring mix of impulsivity and cunning. They are the twin engines propelling the plot.
As is often the case with streaming dramas, there is some bloat in the narrative — it takes multiple episodes for Bianca and the Jackal to even end up in the same place. But there is a compelling focus on the collateral damage these two inflict. The Jackal has a beautiful Spanish wife who slowly becomes more suspicious of her husband’s activities. At the same time, Bianca is willing to put innocents in danger, including her own daughter, because she believes she is serving the greater good. Some of this material can feel like filler, but much of it deepens “The Day of the Jackal” and its depiction of the human cost of global intrigue.
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