The Day of the Jackal (2024)
I don’t watch too many tv shows, usually my intake is limited to movies and sports, but a few weeks ago I started watching the Day of the Jackel series. It’s quite good, and I recommend it for this week’s installment of Weekend Buff.
For those that don’t know this story, it is based on a 1971 book by Frederick Forsyth. The book was a hit and was almost immediately turned into a major film that was also a success. Those narratives portray a hired professional assassin, known as The Jackal, that is tasked with killing French President Charles de Gaulle.
This iteration of the story is set in modern-day Europe and, seeing as de Gaulle died in 1970, writers had to find some other targets for The Jackal. In the opening scene The Jackal kills the Manfred Fest, the prospective Chancellor of Germany, with a remarkable shot. But there is a bigger fish out there and he takes a contract on the life of fictional tech mogul Ulle Dag Charles.
After Manfred Fest’s murder, British MI6 agents open a case on the assassin. They surmise he may be a British national and are determined to identify and stop him.
The Jackal is not a nameless, faceless, deadly automaton. He is a man with a family, living a double life. This adds some real drama and emotion to this thrilling series.
The Jackal is portrayed by Eddie Redmayne (Les Misérables, The Theory of Everything, The Danish Girl). Redmayne is a great actor and gives a fantastic performance here as the deadly but conflicted Jackal. His opps is MI6 agent and former cop Bianca Pullman, played by Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die, Bob Marley: One Love). She is good here as the firearms expert and field agent for MI6.
Agent Pullman uses her knowledge of firearms to surmise the custom rifle manufacturing that must have gone into the seemingly impossible shot that killed the German Chancellor. Her investigation leads into Northern Ireland and The Troubles. A famed Ulster Volunteer Force gunsmith is suspected of manufacturing the rifle.
The series is off to the races from there. It is filled with action, but often deals with personal conflict, manipulation, family, and even some office politics, giving depth to the characters that you don’t often find in an action series. This is a thriller that will pull at your heart strings as well.
The Day of the Jackel is in its first season and is probably going to be renewed for another. It is 10 episodes that have been running a little under an hour. The season finale is coming up next week. One issue is that this series is only on Peacock. You can subscribe to the service by the month for $7.99 if you want to check out the series. Not a bad deal.
It was ironic that I was watching this series as the news of United Healthcare’s Brian Thompson’s assassination broke. His murder was obviously an assassination, but remember, characters like The Jackal are fictional. Having dealt with a few murder for hire plots in my career, there are no Jackals roaming the streets of New York. These plots usually fizzle out before they start or fail due to amateurish plots. We have yet to see the Thompson murder solved, but the NYPD will solve it, and we predict the perp will be much more mundane that The Jackal.
Thanks for reading The Ops Desk. Stay Safe!!
Looking forward to watching this as it’s been on my list!