Brief Story Line
Story focused on a professional assassin with code name Jackal (Eddie Redmayne - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Good Nurse etc) who had shown his amazing skill by killing from a long distance. After the latest assassination, MI6 was asked for help by the Germans where Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch - No Time to Die, Bob Marley: One Love etc), a weapons expert believed she could find out more and convinced her supervisor Osita Halcrow (Chukwudi Iwuji - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Split TV series etc) and their ultimate boss Deputy Chief of Staff Isabel Kirby (Lia Williams - The Crown TV series etc) to kick start the investigation. Later with the help from Vincent Pyne (Nick Blood - Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D TV series etc) they went on various dangerous operations to find the Jackal.
Meanwhile the Jackal was hired by a new employer through a middle person, Zina (Eleanor Matsuura - The Walking Dead TV series etc) to assassinate a high profile tech billionaire nicknamed UDC (Khalid Abdalla - Moon Knight TV series etc). Due to the difficulty and Jackal's intention of leaving such dangerous world behind to be with his beloved wife Nuria (Úrsula Corberó - Lift, Money Heist TV series etc), he demanded a large sum which was ultimately agreed on.
So what would happen to the Jackal and how would MI6 investigations conclude? You could find out in the first season of this series.
End of Brief Story Line
Wow that was pretty amazing. This series started off quite brightly and the assassination was done meticulously which made me in awe of how skillful the Jackal was. The way they show the disguising process by him was brilliant, making me convinced that he was the real deal. That introduction was sufficient to make me hooked with the series and excited to watch it continuously. The story though was not focusing solely on the Jackal but also the persons chasing after him, particularly Bianca. However, this is the part that I personally felt a bit overly detailed and made the first season felt inconsistent in pace especially when focusing on her personal problems.
The series also felt intense whenever Jackal was on the mission and on the run. There were plenty of suspense during the whole season with my favorites, the defining moment in episode 9 and the wonderful finale with some shocking endings. It got me really excited for the second season. Yes, this series indeed has been renewed back in November 2024 (same month as it was released). It's no surprising considering it was well received by audience and critics alike while already having multiple awards nominations (including the prestigious Golden Globe).
One of the factors that made this series entertaining was no doubt the ability of Eddie Redmayne to portray the Jackal. His expressions, the way he talked or transform from ruthless killing mode to loving family man was done seamlessly. It might not be a shock for people who had seen many of his other films before, but it was for me who only ever saw him in Fantastic Beast movies where he played a soft spoken, calm and collected protagonist unlike his character in here. His performance as Jackal also earned Redmayne award nominations and I think he outshone the rest of the cast. Aside from those names above, there were some more who were part of the main cast such as Sule Rimi as Bianca's husband Paul, Ben Hall and Jonjo O'neill as MI6 agents Damian and Edward Carter the fixer respectively, plus Charles Dance (The King's Man etc) as Winthrop who hired Jackal. In addition, the series also had few special guest stars like Richard Dormer (Game of Thrones TV series etc) as the gunsmith Norman Stoke, Adam James (Wicked etc) as Foreign secretary Whitelock and a lot of recurring cast.
This series is a British production and available via streaming on Peacock in the US. It's a pleasant surprise that Max subscribers in Indonesia can also watch this. First season consisted of 10 episodes with duration between 46-61 minutes (season finale was the longest). It was created by Ronan Bennet (creator of critically acclaimed Top Boy TV series and co-writer of Public Enemies). The series itself was a remake of 1973 movie of the same title based on the 1971 novel written by Frederick Forsyth. There was actually another movie adaptation titled The Jackal back in 1997 starring Richard Gere and Bruce Willis which I have not seen either (but it was said to be very bad even if it was successful commercially).
Overall this is an enjoyable thriller series about a very skilled assassin with amazing ability to disguise combined with exciting cat and mouse chase and some intelligently done action & car chase sequence. It has interesting story and they even threw one or two twist (which was not that difficult to guess), but it did have shocking conclusion. If there is anything that I thought could have been better would be the pace consistency with too much distracting story on Bianca's personal problem. Not that I have anything against her, but I think it was rather useless to have those scenes (you'll know what I meant if you have watched this till finish). So if you are interested in watching a cool action thriller series highly regarded by critics then I think you would enjoy this as much as I did.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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