Watching The Day of the Jackal feels like watching a film; it’s taut, fast-paced, and flashy, featuring incredible dual performances by Redmayne and Lynch. Like many thrillers before it, The Day of the Jackal centers on a cat-and-mouse chase between an official and a transgressor, but the series smartly blurs the line between good and evil. Redmayne’s Jackal is by all accounts the bad guy—he’s a hitman after all—but we’re shown his humane side and the lives he works hard to protect. Meanwhile, Lynch’s Bianca is a government agent, but her hands are dirtied with just as much (if not more) blood than the Jackal. Who’s really at fault here? Part of the fun in watching this is figuring that out, but it’s also just as enjoyable to see what disguise the Jackal whips out, and what moral quandary Bianca finds herself deep in, next.
Synopsis
An unrivalled and highly elusive lone assassin, the Jackal, makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee. But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake.
Storyline
A hit man known as the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) travels around the world in pursuit of his next high-profile victim, but inching closer than ever is MI6 agent Bianca (Lashana Lynch), who will stop at nothing to capture him.
TLDR
It drags at times, but this mini-series is charged with the same thrill and tension as any good action movie.
What stands out
Eddie Redmayne in The Day of the Jackal versus Glen Powell in Hit-Man: whose disguise will reign supreme?