In 1971, English author Frederick Forsyth published a political thriller about a professional assassin hired to kill the President of France Charles de Gaulle. The book was called The Day of the Jackal and was a huge hit—no pun intended. In 1973, a film adaptation was released, starring Derek Jacobi and directed by Fred Zinnemann, and it, also, was hugely popular. The 1997 film titled The Jackal, however, starring Bruce Willis and Richard Gere, shares pretty much only the word “jackal” and the occupation of the main character with the original Forsyth novel, as the filmmakers just wanted to make a movie about a professional assassin who was really good at disguises. That movie left a lot to be desired, but it resurrected the dormant Jackal character from the ‘70s and without it, I’m sure, we may not have the much more excellent incarnation that we do today.
Peacock needed a hit. They knew they needed more than sports and Poker Face, so they decided to spend some serious coin and go all in on a series that could challenge Netflix for 
those precious streaming subscriptions (especially if they hoped to charge what they wanted to charge). What they needed was something exciting, mainstream, edgy, well-made and with somewhat of a built-in name recognition. Enter the Jackal. It’s got just enough of a pop culture/literary reference and yet still feels new. Everybody loves assassins (well, in film and TV at least) and if you can throw in an Oscar-winner, it just may be a winner.
Well, Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal, starring Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne as the titular professional hitman is more than a winner, it hits the veritable jackpot.
Ironically, the ONLY thing I don’t love about this series is Redmayne in the lead role—for some reason, I just think someone else could have done much better—but everything else about The Day of the Jackal is worth recommending if you love fast-paced, action-packed spy thrillers. Imagine a James Bond movie, but from the POV of the villain instead of Bond and that’s what this series feels like. We get to see the bad guy’s process instead of the good guy’s, and, to be honest, it’s just as fun to watch. Watching him get away with stuff is just as much fun as watching the good guys figure him out.
And it is this giant cat-and-mouse game that is at the heart of The Day of the Jackal. The great Lashana Lynch plays the British MI-6 intelligence officer tasked with trying to track down the Jackal before he kills again, and watching to see if the Jackal can continue to stay one step ahead of her or if he will make that one little mistake…. Well, it’s great drama.
Of course, there is a lot of killing people, disguises, guns, car chases, the usual, but it is Redmayne and Lynch that make this series different. Neither of them are standard caricatures and neither is playing a trope that you’ve seen before. While Redmayne’s performance style may not be my cup of tea, I will admit that he brings an unusual flavor to the role that does make it quite different. As for Lynch, her close-to-the-brink emotional tea kettle, certain to explode any second controlled chaos of a performance is hypnotic. Redmayne is the one who is trying to create a character who is mysterious and haunting, but, for me, it is Lynch’s morally conflicted and ethically shady good guy who is the far more interesting of the two.
But nobody is coming to The Day of the Jackal for the acting. You come for the gorgeous international locations (and there are many), the action-packed sequences (and there are many), and the exciting cat-and-mouse game that keeps you on the edge of your seat (it does). This is definitely one worth binging, it will be hard to stop once you start, and that’s exactly what Peacock is counting on.
The first season of The Day of the Jackal is now streaming on Peacock. Season 2 has been confirmed.