Slimy posh boy Eddie Redmayne is the cunning Jackal in The Day Of The Jackal

No way, NO WAY can Redmayne ever even approach the gorgeous, enigmatic, terrifying, tight little-bodied piece of ass Edward Fox was.

Some things don't need remaking.

I like Redmayne, but he always seems so hyper macho.

Yes. Too butch.

It will be tough to better the 1973 original film version. The 1997 film tried and did not succeed.

I cannot watch even a second of that smug cunt Redmayne. Hard pass!

Temu Andrew Garfield, and I can’t stand him either.

Trailer.

It's getting good reviews.

[quote]Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal is a top-notch thriller, with dazzling action sequences and smart storytelling. It’s a beautifully shot series, too, with the Jackal hopping from Germany to Spain to France in picturesque fashion. (If nothing else, it serves as a handsome travelogue for Europe’s finer locations.) [TV Line]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's on Peacock.

I loved the original movie and don't need dazzling action sequences. I canjust imagine.... The best and most memorable scenes were of the Jackal's dispassionate, methodical preparations and the slow, suspenseful advance of the French police's investigation.

One of my least favourite journalists has written about the show.

If I was clever I'd probably be able to tell if he liked the show or hated the show.

Well I think it would be redundant to make a film remake of the original as it can’t be topped. But I’m all for a mini series which could bring even more depth to the story or take it at a slower pace.

For sure the film is one of the best British films ever made.

Edward Fox was brilliant.

I don't get all the Redmayne hate on DL. He's a good actor and sometimes tackles difficult projects: The Danish Girl, The Theory of Everything, and The Good Nurse.

However, I do have trouble seeing him in a high-octane, action movie. We'll see.

Day of the jackal is hardly a high octane action movie.

This is a tv show for a start.

From Eddie's perspective it's a role he's not taken on before - see Matt Damon in The Bourne Chronicles - and he gets to flesh out an enigmatic character over multiple hours.

He pretty clearly loves the show, R10

Did anyone hear Edward Fox’s Desert Island discs? His accent is so posh it’s camp!

Here you go.

Why don’t we like Eddie Redmayne?

Because try as he might, he wasn't masculine enough to be convincing as "The Danish Girl."

I can’t forgive him for Fantastic Beasts.

He’s hard to look at.

R18 watch this.

Yeah, same for me, R21. His marshmallow coloring and that goofy, ugly mouth are just too distracting.

I've seen some pictures of him, such as from when he was younger, that show why he might have been considered good-looking at one time. But anything other than a posed modeling shot or head shot reveals him to be facially very awkward, almost grotesque.

Film wise he has the Oscar and film BAFTA.

Theatre wise he has the Tony and Olivier

TV wise he doesn't have an Emmy or TV BAFTA

Helen Mirren is safe as the only person to hold the double Triple Acting Crown.

Eddie Redmayne is a bit freakish but that doesn't turn me off a person.

He's a try-hard one-note Actor who looks like a lizard and sounds like a pedophile.

I wasn’t aware pedophiles had a particular sound.

Seeing him disturbs me, it's like a clown or a drag queen feeling, or a creepy doll.

Mary!

bet he has phimosis and a purple penis head!

Everything seems pretty standard issue and fuckable, to my eye.

First episode very good, reminiscent of Bourne.

The first 5 episodes are available with weekly releases up to the finale on December 12th

here ya go, r27

Does one have to pay for Peacock to watch this?

r34 Yes, Dustin. Do you have Xfinity? I was able to add Netflix, Apple, and Peacock for $15 total, but with commercials.

I’ve watched the first two episodes. It’s different enough from the movie that I don’t compare the two. It’s ok so far, nothing brilliant but it’s interesting enough to keep watching considering the current alternative of real life.

Thanks R35. I already have Netflix from...T-Mobile, I think. It will show up on NBC, Netflix, Hulu, or Prime soon enough.

Obligatory FAG!

straight fem boys are confusing.

There was one shot in episode 2 and Eddie was a dead ringer for Jane Lynch.

I like Eddie. I like him SO much, he is my choice for People's 2024 Sexiest Man. If not him, then Tim O'Tay.

Benedict Cumberbatch would've been better suited for this role. He'd be more believable as a cold blooded assassin than Eddie Redmayne.

Just binged the first five episodes and don't think I'll be finishing the season. The writing is just extremely basic when it comes to spy shows, and that clichéd cliffhanger at the end of the fifth episode made me roll my eyes. The MI6 agent knows too much, too fast – I prefer watching regular people be competent at their work and cooperating with each other, rather than savants killing it on their own (and she's a cunt to her coworker, too). Just absolutely nothing you haven't seen before, and you might even be offended if you're into Slow Horses as I am.

I hate to be a bitch, but both of the leads are unpleasant to look at for me. All has been said about Redmayne already, but I don't know why Lynch was cast, she has exactly two facial expressions. There was a scene at the end of the second episode where the camera lingers on her for a while to show she's distraught and there's just... nothing there? It's the same face she always has? Decent actress, but not good enough to be a lead in something like this. And her daughter looks about the same age as her, it's so confusing.

The constant "London, ENGLAND" card every single time we go back to London almost made me tear my hair out. You know you can trust your audience and skip it once they've seen the London skyline, right? And you can skip the country part too, I'm sure people know in which countries NYC and Budapest are located.

Oh, and the soundtrack is fucking atrocious. Like your dad trying to be cool, just painful.

Lynch isn't a good actress, I agree. Olivia Colman would've been a good choice.

[quote] but I don't know why Lynch was cast,

The second lead had to be black and female. That's how it is now. Two white male leads and the whole fucking world would end.

This is yet another 10 part series that could've been done in a 2 hour movie.

[quote]The second lead had to be black and female. That's how it is now. Two white male leads and the whole fucking world would end.

Oh fuck off. She's already been in a Marvel movie and was great in No Time To Die as the new 007.

The thought of Olivia Colman running around with a semi automatic weapon is hilarious.

She did it in The Night Manager

I really could do without the bloody cookie cutter family drama rubbish - for both of them - that we've seen a million times already. So unoriginal, especially Bianca’s situation with the moody daughter and exasperated but caring husband. I get that they need to pad out 10 eps, but then why not cut this crap and make 6 really great eps instead? Imagine Bourne with family drama dogshit shoehorned in? It’s irritating dull filler.

I know Lashana Lynch is the current hot diversity pick but she is terrible. She takes me out of it so hard. I feel like they tried to replicate Naomi Harris as Moneypenny in 007 who was so believable and brilliant. But I literally can not buy that this girl is MI6’s lead sniper weapons expert. Why couldn’t they have just hired someone good.

I've enjoyed it a lot but honestly in episode 5 how did it get dark so quickly and is drone surveillance not a thing in this universe?

I've seen 5 episodes and mostly enjoyed it. I've never had an issue with the liveability or attractiveness of Eddie.

Some plot points are super far-fetched. Major points and minor points. A minor one? Why has the Jackal left his home office completely unconvincingly set-decorated with nothing whatsoever in his desk? I'm too lazy to go back but also, didn't he have a safe house elsewhere where he kept all his stuff? Why is it all again in his home "safe room"? Maybe I am mistaken on that point.

Minor spoiler: When he shot the truck driver and cop, I realised just how extreme his psychopathy is. He's not just a OCD genius hit man with ordinary psychopathy.

Yes, why did he have the secret room in his own house? It was only a matter of time before his nosy wife and her stupid family found it. He has a ton of money, he could've had another house or apartment somewhere to hide all that stuff that his family wouldn't have known about.

Is he going to kill the blond Estonian? Set him up as some kind of decoy? Or is he a downlow COCKSUCKER!?

SPOILER: In the late 90s movie Bruce Willis picked up a homosexual for presumed intercourse and then killed him to use his apartment. I expected that to happen but we got The Twist.

The Afghanistan flashbacks were annoying. I hope it doesn't go down the road of "Western military intervention made him a hit man".

R54 what movie is that?

Well Jackal could still fuck the Estonian and kill him afterward. Otherwise this is a farfetched plot twist.

I seem to remember reading that psychopaths can be bisexual.

[quote] Is he going to kill the blond Estonian?

Who plays him?

Is this the actor? He's danish. Playing the estonian character Rasmus?

Thank you, R57.

[quote] [R54] what movie is that?

The Jackal starring Bruce Willis, Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier.

In the movie the Jackal is hired to kill Hillary Clinton.

Stephen Spinella played the gay hook up in the Bruce Willis film.

Yes I think that's what we will see in the next expisode but its interesting he fucks him first. Who knows, maybe he kills him pretty fast after the kissing starts.

By the way Andreas Jessen is 35 and can change his looks radically from pretty and sweet to skeevy and creepy. I'll have to try to watch one of his other movies or tv.

The part of the story that throws me off is the nosey Spanish wife and her leech family. They seem like a hugely unpredictable risk to have for someone as meticulous like the Jackal. It’s incongruous with his character and obviously an Achilles’ heel.

Likely he’ll be as boring in screen as he always is

Well the new episode had some nice surprises. And that final scene...

😭

Shut it, R64. Most of us haven't seen it yet!

I've been thoroughly impressed with the show thus far, and unlike our predictably uptight cunts who hate literally everything, most critics are raving about the show. (And R8? It's a co-production with Sky. Despite filming most of it in Croatia, it's still Peacock's priciest show to date.) To be fair, I haven't read the book or watched either of the prior movies based on it, but I knew going in that it was intended to be a continuing series set in the present day, so I knew there wouldn't be any assassination of Charles de Gaulle as in the original. (That plus the show dispenses with the "European world leader" bit in its first 10 minutes.)

R43, your cunty comments are contradictory:

[quote]Just absolutely nothing you haven't seen before, and you might even be offended if you're into Slow Horses as I am.

[quote]I hate to be a bitch, but both of the leads are unpleasant to look at for me.

I don't mind being a bitch, but these back-to-back sentences do not add up. You're either delusional or just a bigot if you find Eddie Redmayne & Lashana Lynch "unpleasant" but have no problem with Jackson Lamb on "Slow Horses," intentionally one of the grossest characters in modern TV history. (But concurred that it's the better of the TV shows, and unlike this one at least has a sense of humor.)

[quote]Shut it, [R64]. Most of us haven't seen it yet!

Oh Mary, only basic bitches go on line and read about a tv show before they've seen the latest episode.

[quote]Some plot points are super far-fetched. Major points and minor points. A minor one? Why has the Jackal left his home office completely unconvincingly set-decorated with nothing whatsoever in his desk? I'm too lazy to go back but also, didn't he have a safe house elsewhere where he kept all his stuff? Why is it all again in his home "safe room"? Maybe I am mistaken on that point.

R51, buying the premise for this entire show requires accepting the impossible, namely that a sniper can successfully assassinate someone – via a direct hit to the middle of the forehead – at a distance of over 3,800 meters. (And with only one shot.) Or that it's possible to build a rifle with that type of range, period, let alone one without a solid barrel.

Still, I agree that it's both odd and contrived that the writers would have his "secret lair" hidden inside a new-build house. Cadiz isn't exactly a remote area, so I see no reason why it was in any way necessary to set it up inside his own house (and in his own closet, no less). The Jackal seems like a minimalist, so I didn't think it was odd that his desk drawers were empty, but OTOH that also seemed like a plot contrivance: after discovering literally nothing in his desk, that's when Nuria and her brothers started getting suspicious about the *lack* of personal effects in it (and then found his secret hideaway).

Just as curiously, the Jackal obviously anticipated the possibility, given that he had the entire closet & hidden room covered with cameras, and knew immediately when they'd discovered it (thus prompting his pivot to "working in corporate espionage" to explain his disguises). Left unexplained is the Batman Clause: how the fuck did he manage to build a secret hideaway with literally no one figuring it out at some point? (meaning the builders) I know they cover the topic of whether anyone in their "game" can successfully have a family alongside a secret life, but still. (Plus he did so in his wife's native country, and presumably with her as a Cadiz native? Seriously?)

Also, they seem to be writing the Jackal as at least *human*, as opposed to a one-note, sociopathic killing machine. He's shown screwing up repeatedly (being spotted by his wife before leaving town was a flat-out amateur move), and also acting in ways out of character versus the original versions: returning to Munich solely to kill the son of the chancellor who stiffed him on his fee was hugely reckless. And they're doing the same for Bianca: she's a truly terrible mother who nearly tortures a man in her daughter's bedroom – after being careless enough to let them figure out her location in the first place – who becomes excessively obsessed with catching the man who made an impossible assassination shot. (I'm unclear why a show starring British actors, and set in large part in the UK, Spain & Germany, takes excursions to both Estonia and Belarus.)

OTOH it's DEFINITELY better than any of the "meet cute with an insanely hot female agent and the dimwitted himbo assigned to be her love interest" shows & movies: "Ghosted," "The Union," "Heart of Stone," etc.

[quote]Well the new episode had some nice surprises. And that final scene...

I honestly didn't think they'd do more than flirting, given that this Jackal's supposedly a happily married man! At least it's not obvious homophobia like the originals.

I love Eddie but he hates me at the moment cause I left Cabaret at intermission on Broadway even when he called me out from the the audience and crouched next to me before his entrance. To be honest, I thought it was shite. He'll get over it. Told him I had to poo.

The one and only Jackal, Edward Fox.

Oh, Rasmus. If only you had forgotten all about "Peter"

I like how he took pills so he wouldn't have to take a shit while hiding in the rafters for two days. We did see that he pissed, though. He filled a couple water bottles.

So he "went rogue" because his army buddies were a bunch of asshole psychos, and becomes an even more ruthless assassin for hire? Hmmm. (But to address the elephant in the room: was he faking it with poor Rasmus, or is the Jackal supposed to actually be bisexual??)

Btw interesting that we saw so little of the Jackal this week, aside from the obvious flashbacks. Was it only the phone call with his wife that we saw, with Eddie in shadow?

psychopaths can be bi. they dont have normal connection and relationships their blood runs cold

Season 2?

Yeah, I just saw the last episode and it's definitely set up a Season 2 in which he looks for Nuria and tries to get even with the Gray Man. Spoilers below**:

Like a lot of thrillers, I thought the show started out really good, even though I don't think much of Redmayne, but as it went on it morphed. Everything he did once he was in final pursuit of UDG was a fuck-up, whereas previously he never fucked up. He occasionally had to shoot a stray person to keep the trail clean, but that was the worst it got. When he first spoke about doing a job, he said the majority of planning went into getting away, yet there was clearly (a) no plan to get away from the on-water shooting of a man with a billion dollars' worth of security detail, and (b) no actual way to get away from that situation. If he was doing the job for the money, so he could make a new life with his family, then there was no point unless he COULD get away. So anyhow, getting away then became a festival of shooting and slashing which to me felt like the filmmakers just wanted more blood, in the absence of the ability to create suspense any other way.

The other thing was that, as posters above have pointed to but not quite articulated, in the first half of the season it's a given that the Jackal is a psychopath. OK, he has a fondness for his wife and child; but it's not unheard-of for a male psychopath to think very highly of his son and to view his wife as an extension of his own psyche, so that can work. But in the second half of the season (a) we are asked to believe he has some form of morality, which causes him to execute his comrades for bad behaviour* and causes him pain when he has to say "I kill people for money", and (b) we are asked to believe he has normal human feelings towards innocent people: both facts disproved repeatedly in the first half. So the whole thing had somewhat less psychological credibility than "Spare".

Finally, the end of Bianca's story was a vast damp squib, and honestly, quite deserved. Throughout the series she was good at detecting, but a truly eye-wateringly hopeless field agent. I reckon Nuria's brother could've taken her out.

*The fact that he also wanted to get away and make the big bucks is helpful, but we are definitely meant to think he had PTSD from the massacre because those flashbacks are coming from inside his head.

As for Rasmus, what R74 says is right, and in this case he definitely seduced Rasmus to further his project: he needed accommodation he didn't have to use his credit card for, and he needed to be able to get backstage. The oversight that Rasmus would be at the presentation, and that Jackal was planning to walk down the same stairs at the same time as everyone else in the room, was kinda a big one for someone who planned everything else.

Production 9: scriptwriting 4 at best.

Just finished watching the series. Don't know much about Redmayne as an actor but enjoyed it. I felt it was fast paced, nice scenery etc. Loved the book when it came out.

I just finished it as well, and while I disagree with R76 about Bianca – a "hopeless field agent" who happened to be the one who solved the entire mystery by herself, despite being intentionally blockaded by MI6 itself, and also the one who figured out his identity and location? – I completely agree that the show began to unravel in its second half.

It starts in an understandable "holy shit!" scene: the Jackal successfully shoots the German chancellor from a seemingly impossible 3.8-kilometer distance. Beforehand he takes several "test" shots to see how the wind is (literally) blowing, but then pulls it off thanks to being in a stiff sniper position. Every aspect was meticulous, and it worked. That would've also been the case for UDC had the extra shooter not shown up.

Except then he goes after UDC on his Croatian island, where he shoots him from over FOUR kilometers. On a boat bobbing in the sea (making it exponentially more difficult to hit anything, period). He misses AND somehow magically deduces the exact moment UDC will come up for air. Despite UDC's entire security team knowing he's there, apparently they had no plan along the lines of, "Swim in an unpredictable direction so the Jackal can't blow your brains out!"

If the German chancellor shooting was at least within the realm of the possible, a successful sniper shot – in the forehead FFS! – from a wobbling boat is not. Even more stupidly, how the actual fuck did he OUTRUN all the boats chasing him? What, UDC didn't have a helicopter on the island? And nobody has radar?!? All we see is him speeding away while being chased by several boats at around the same velocity but then .... cut to him back on the mainland. (And while I know the Jackal's a sniper, is there some reason he couldn't have just launched a torpedo towards UDC from the boat? He was in the army, but he'd still have the know-how for that, particularly considering he found someone who could custom-fabricate his sniper rifles.)

And to be clear, this Jackal is not a "psychopath" – and quite intentionally so. He's driven by rage from his time in Afghanistan, but a segue from "killing off his entire Army division because they loved shooting up women & children" to "contract killer for anyone & everyone" is a rather considerable stretch. (It's not like Germany had anything to do with his deployment.) It's also not really PTSD, at least not in the traditional sense. He could, however qualify as a sociopath at least in part: he feels remorse, especially when he had to kill the older British couple on holiday, but doesn't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his way as quickly as possible. (Including poor Erasmus.)

The part of the show that makes no sense – and not just because it isn't in the book – is the entire Spanish element. While I get that it was a necessity to give him .... well, I guess feelings, given that it's a continuing series, his trademark meticulousness fails him at nearly every point. He builds a house with a much too easily found hidden room – and he KNOWS it's not that hard to find, hence him having cameras all over the place. He flies nonstop from Cádiz to Croatia for the hit, in disguise as an older man but still visibly Eddie Redmayne, but only AFTER – almost bizarrely – assassinating a Cuban (!) named Jimmie (!!) because his brother-in-law kinda-sorta made a deal with him and he's a gangster of some sort?!?

And finally, it ends on the dumbest, most predictable note of all: the Jackal going on the hunt for Nuria & Carlito. MI6 and every security service in the world now has his file, thanks to Bianca's work that got her killed.

Not sure I'll be back for a second season.

Why the fuck would UDC not just have released River earlier?! The fact that every billionaire wants you dead and a known assassin is after you isn’t enough for you to just go ‘Fuck it’ and release the program early?!

This is just a reverse of the villain trying to kill the hero in an elaborate, time consuming trap thus giving the hero time to get away.

R79, the whole series is about people making stupid decisions, beginning with the Jackal’s failure to get any money upfront before executing a hit.

[quote]I disagree with [R76] about Bianca – a "hopeless field agent" who happened to be the one who solved the entire mystery by herself

I SAID she was good at detecting. But her field work would make the more useless end of the Slow Horses team look like James Bond.

One of the many gaping holes in the plot was that we never understood UDC as a character. He gave every impression of being the kind of smarmy, attention-seeking multi-billionaire who is the poster child for the Trump regime. The reason he didn't just release the program and have done with it was that clearly he wanted the attention of a large audience and 200 million viewers as he made the announcement.

But none of that gels with the idea that River--which, BTW, appears to be basically The Blockchain--was a great gift to humanity (that would have quickly undermined UDC's own wealth if he hadn't been contemporaneously raking in zillions from charging people to use it).

Is it historically accurate in any meaningful way? I've been waiting for years for a movie or tv show about Carlos the Jackal and his Euro crew, but I'm getting mixed vibes off of this

Just realized this show is *not* about the terrorist Carlos the Jackal---Carlos was dubbed so because of the book this show is based on. Carry on.

R83, you've never seen the 2010 series "Carlos"? It's great.

[quote]Why the fuck would UDC not just have released River earlier?! The fact that every billionaire wants you dead and a known assassin is after you isn’t enough for you to just go ‘Fuck it’ and release the program early?!

Or better yet: he could've explicitly connected River's launch to his own continued existence. If he dies, River would be instantly released to all once a pacemaker of some sort stops functioning.

[quote]One of the many gaping holes in the plot was that we never understood UDC as a character. He gave every impression of being the kind of smarmy, attention-seeking multi-billionaire who is the poster child for the Trump regime. The reason he didn't just release the program and have done with it was that clearly he wanted the attention of a large audience and 200 million viewers as he made the announcement.

A Palestinian-Estonian gay man as a "poster child for the Trump regime"? Disagreed, but I definitely agree he needed considerably better character definition. It's about as difficult to sympathize with someone so excessively enigmatic as it is for a certain healthcare CEO – also shot by an insanely hot assassin IRL.

[quote]But her field work would make the more useless end of the Slow Horses team look like James Bond.

While I'll cede that it's a far better series in nearly every way, everyone at Slough House aside from Jackson has massive fuckups, starting with River – curious coincidence with River on "Jackal" – and his failure to prevent a terrorist from blowing up a Stansted Express train (resulting in months of havoc). And almost giving up MI5's entire file on the PM to prevent Standish from being immediately killed, unaware that it was entirely a test (and an obvious one). Lamb's arguably the GOAT in all British intelligence-related television to date, but Bianca's still WAY more talented than Slough House's rejects. (Plus MI6 is a considerably more complicated place to work, given its geopolitical angle.)

I don't LIKE competition in the ventriloquist-dummy-face acting category.

I enjoyed the series of this assassin's life

And I'll play De Gaulle, since we're going with stunt casting.

I’d love to see a tv series faithfully reproduce the book.

[Quote] Lashana Lynch is the woman on the hunt for Eddie

🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

Huh, R90?? I haven't even read it, but I know the book's based on a real-life assassination attempt against Charles de Gaulle. The problem with "faithful adaptations" is what to do for an encore, which is why the second season of "Shogun" could be an abject disaster despite the first being perfections. (We did, after all, just see this in action with our beloved Gaga and the shitfest that was "Folie a Deux.")

It'd also need to be set mainly in France and among largely or entirely white people, given the lack of people of color in the '60s. And probably only four episodes. At most.

I liked the series, but I didn't consider it remotely connected to the original story. I read the book and saw the original and loved it. It's a classic. And it was based on a true story.