The Day of the Jackal (2024)

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The Day of the Jackal, the big popular TV drama in the UK that had many people gripped through the winter. It premiered on the streaming service SKY TV and stared Eddie Redmayne as the mysterious and very British assassin for hire who kills important people for very big bucks. Right from the opening episode you are hooked as the ice cold killer finds his target with a sniper rifle from a very long way away. As we go deeper we meet a very ambitious British Mi5 agent (played by Lashana Lynch), who sets about trying to track down the Jackal before he kills again. The next target is a tech billionaire (Khalid Abdalla), who wants to release software that his fellow billionaires are not happy about. As the launch day nears the Jackal plots his mission to the inch to take the target out on behalf of a scheming industrialists played by Charles Dance. But the Jackal has family problems to go with his high pressure missions, his feisty wife (Ursula Cobrero from Bank Heist) unaware of his day job and beginning to get suspicious of him. Its great fun and you rip through the episodes as the intrigue builds and backstories filled out, layered in action and intrigue. The female agent is a bit loud and annoying and doesn't quite work as wokery demands a lot of ethnicity in the big shows here, her fellow MI5 superiors rather cliche as they deliver the predictable double-crossing plot lines. It lacks a needed comedy edge and rather po-faced at times but Redmayne is surely putting his hat in the ring to play James Bond here with that retro 70s look he has and that Steve McQueen cool on screen. With plenty of exotic locations and duplicitous characters its a great watch and good to see this type of TV spy thriller being made once again,