'The Day of the Jackal' Made Me Decide I Like Eddie Redmayne

I wish there were jackals in America, but coyotes are nice, too

Easy Money Sniper, that’s me. (Marcell Piti/Carnival Film & Television Limited; Hannah Roman)

I was reading a Reddit thread the other day about actors people don’t like, and I was surprised to see how many people said Eddie Redmayne. I didn’t know he was as unpopular as he is. He’s one one of those actors who won an Oscar too early in his career and it kind of cursed him more than it helped him. I guess I hadn’t thought about him enough to develop an opinion on him. I think I saw The Theory of Everything, but I don’t remember it at all. The only movie I’ve really seen him in is the first Fantastic Beasts movie, which is an astoundingly bad film for a lot of reasons, and while he’s not the biggest one, he’s part of it. It’s not that his performance as Newt Scamander is bad, but his choice to play the main character of an alienating movie as an emotionally distant autistic person makes it even more ill-conceived and inaccessible. It seems like he often makes bold choices that people find annoying. 

I like his performance in the new series The Day of the Jackal, though. He’s emotionally distant in this one, too, but it works. In this latest adaptation of the novel, he plays the titular assassin, a highly paid professional who keeps who he really is a secret from his wife Úrsula Corberó, who was Tokyo in Money Heist and has a very pleasant accent. He’s so compartmentalized and calculating that he’s basically not a human. 

The Day of the Jackal is similar to The Killer, David Fincher’s minimalistic assassin movie from last year, in the way it spends a lot of time just watching the hitman go about his business without speaking. About a quarter of the show’s runtime is Redmayne assembling a sniper rifle or brooding in a hotel room while an entire Radiohead song plays. It’s kind of cool, but it’s also kind of annoying, because it’s not as cool as the show thinks it is. Overall, the show is fun, though — a lot more fun than The Killer, which is an experiment in trying an audience’s patience. The Day of the Jackal has exciting action setpieces, cool kills — the Jackal pops a German politician’s melon from two miles away — and a slick Euro style. Cities at night, Spanish villas, BMWs, nicely textured sweaters, that sort of thing. The show was created by Ronan Bennett, a Northern Irish writer who has lived a pretty extraordinary life and wrote the Michael Mann film Public Enemies, which makes sense. Michael Mann is a clear influence on The Day of the Jackal. 

The show also features Lashana Lynch, another performer I’m pretty unfamiliar with but is good in this. She’s the MI6 agent pursuing the Jackal. She’s a gun expert, and she’s trying to figure out who he is by tracing the provenance of his unique rifle. It’s a different angle of approach on the detective element that gives the show a little something extra. 

The Day of the Jackal is on Peacock with a release schedule I’ve never seen before: The first five episodes are live now, and the remaining five are coming out weekly, with the last two being released together on Dec. 12. TV just comes out however now. 

So yeah, Eddie Redmayne. I get why people have a problem with him, but I like him. He’s no Colin Farrell or Ethan Hawke or other Dad Show Hall of Famer, but I buy him as the Jackal. One of my worst tweets of all time was a joke about how it’s funny that his name is “Redmayne” and he has red hair and it haunts me to this day. You know what thought I just had and it made me laugh, though? Reddie Edmayne. There, I’ve redeemed myself. Go watch The Day of the Jackal if you want a killer Dad Show.

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I reviewed the new Prime Video crime thriller Cross, based on Substacker James Patterson’s Alex Cross novels. It’s a rare Prime Video Dad Show I don’t like. I know, I can’t believe it either. Aldis Hodge is really good, but the show doesn’t go far enough. It needs more Silence of the Lamb! The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner.

There are some half-hearted attempts at shock, but Cross pulls its punches, never showing much gore or delivering many memorably graphic lines of dialogue. If you're watching a serial killer show, you want to see something crazy, and Cross has a disappointing and frankly baffling lack of craziness. People can handle a lot more than this. If you're even a casual Criminal Minds viewer, you'll probably be bored by Cross' timidity.

Read the whole thing at TV Guide.

Also, FX’s Troubles limited series Say Nothing is out on Hulu today, and it’s really good. If you missed my review last week, here it is again.

FX releasing Say Nothing so soon after Election Day is interesting timing. The limited series is an elegiac drama about the psychological toll of political violence, told in such a way that its perpetrators are not heroes or villains, just people clinging to the idea that what they're doing is right, to paraphrase a line from the show. There probably aren't many American viewers looking for this kind of heavy entertainment at the moment, but those who do check it out will find a well-made, thought-provoking story about ideology and disillusionment. It's not being made and released with just America in mind, though. This is a story about Northern Ireland.