Harry and Jack Williams created this series about a contract killer and her journalist son, set in various stunning European locations.
With a blend of absurdist entertainment and simplicity, the new AMC+ series, The Assassin, is sustained by the charisma of its stars, Keeley Hawes and Freddie Highmore.
Creators: Harry Williams, Jack Williams
Stars: Keeley Hawes, Freddie Highmore, Shalom Brune-Franklin
Whether this is enough to sustain what feels more like a paragraph sketch than a full television season depends on your opinion of beautiful European landscapes and empty plot twists. Just a few days after finishing the first six episodes, I remembered nothing of the second half of the season. Even so, I'd probably be convinced to watch Hawes as 007 and Highmore charmingly stuttering again.
Both the strengths and limitations of The Assassin are typical of creators Harry and Jack Williams, masters at devising compelling premises—see Rellik, Liar, and The Tourist, among other series—but less successful at developing them.
After a magnificent opening scene in which an assassin cuts her way through a house under construction, ruthlessly eliminating thugs and henchmen before receiving some shocking news, we jump forward 31 years.
Julie (Hawes) has retired from her successful career as an assassin and now lives in a beautiful house in the hills of a stunning Greek island, interacting little with the locals, save for the occasional argument with the town butcher, Luka (Gerald Kyd). Which is ironic, because she used to do something else entirely.
Edward (Highmore), Julie's estranged son, comes to visit the island. He's a journalist. What kind of journalist? When I say I have no idea, I'm not exaggerating. His profession is a ridiculous excuse for a minor plot point and nothing more. It doesn't even provide him with any useful secondary skills that might come in handy later on. It's absurdly useless. Anyway, Edward has some news to share with his mother, whom he believes to be a headhunter. Which is ironic, because "headhunter" is a real, non-violent job that sounds like it's related to being a hitman.
As I was saying, Julie is retired, but she gets a call from her old contact offering her triple her usual fee to kill Kayla (Shalom Brune-Franklin). Kayla is in charge of the philanthropic arm of a mining company owned by her father (Alan Dale, later on), and she and her less charitable brother Ezra (Devon Terrell) are anchored off the island's coast on a yacht. Why is Kayla in charge of the philanthropic arm of an otherwise potentially evil company? Because it's a position that allows them to say, "This character must be a good person," without her actually doing anything good.
Julie accepts the job, but she can't bring herself to pull the trigger, and soon an attempt on her life leaves the island in ruins, forces her to reveal her profession to Edward, and unites them with Kayla, Ezra, and, for no apparent reason, Luka.
Soon, they find themselves crisscrossing a small corner of Europe—Greece, Albania, and wide shots of France and London—killing people and trying to avoid being killed themselves.
Oh, and Gina Gershon appears as Marie, a woman who likes manga and knows things about Edward's long-lost father. Why manga? No idea. But she spends an entire episode in a comic book drawing class. Just… drawing.
The series "The Assassin" has a promising start, with competent direction from Lisa Mulcahy. The opening sequence and a shootout at a Greek wedding are the two best action scenes in the series. In fact, they might be the only two truly memorable action sequences in the series. A good way to attract an audience, but perhaps not the best for maintaining interest.
The pilot episode establishes the tense relationship between Julie and Edward, but offers little detail about Edward's childhood, other than that Julie traveled frequently on "business" and was probably unprepared for motherhood, given her history of murder. Importantly, when Julie speeds down a rural road on her motorcycle with Edward clinging to her in terror, the visual gag works and is fitting for the character.
While some viewers might think of Highmore as a good doctor or an aspiring chocolate factory owner, for me he will always be Norman Bates, making him perfect for portraying shy young men with mother issues. He plays confusion and nervousness well, and his sense of humor is excellent. However, the actor is limited by the lack of depth in Edward's character.
Hawes, a television star as versatile as they come, clearly enjoys the shootouts and fight scenes, and he does so convincingly. The series has no interest in addressing morality.
That just means there are main characters in the series who are incapable of making decisions consistent with their personalities, so nothing they do makes sense beyond being mere pawns in a game moving around a board. Almost nothing anyone does in The Assassin makes sense to the person doing it. Nor is it that it's meaningless. It's simply the plot, expressed through good-looking people.
That's why I appreciate actors who appear in one or two episodes, shine, and then disappear. They don't have to look like real people. Jack Davenport has a stylish and funny one-episode cameo as a fellow assassin from Julie's past. Richard Dormer, so good in Rellik, the otherwise uneven Williams series, has a brusque and manic one-episode appearance as Julie's former contact, though it made me long for his better guest appearance in Peacock's The Day of the Jackal. Dale and Gershon have slightly longer roles, both delivering memorable performances.
And the scenery is magnificent. The Greek islands are lush and green. The urban landscapes in Greece and Albania are, at least, distinctly European. When the houses and yachts are meant to be symbols of wealth, they are opulent as expected. Creativity is sorely lacking in the various locations, but at least when Julie and Edward argue on an Albanian hillside, the views are quite beautiful.
Perhaps that will suffice, if your expectations are low. This isn't a dark, twist-filled, six-episode assassin series like Netflix's Black Doves, nor is it an excessively long and complex ten-episode series like the aforementioned Day of the Jackal. The Assassin is light, nonsensical, and will satisfy Highmore and Hawes fans more than casual viewers of the genre.
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