Seems like you can’t log into a streaming service these days without stepping into a spy thriller series, whether it be “Slow Horses” or “The Day of the Jackal,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” or “Special Ops: Lioness.” “The Recruit” or “The Night Agent.” The trend continues with “The Agency,” debuting Friday on Paramount+ with Showtime, which has all the trappings of a prestige series, from the A-list cast led by Michael Fassbender, Jodie Turner-Smith, Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere, to the outstanding source material (it’s based on the critically acclaimed French series “Le Bureau des Légendes”), to director Joe Wright of “Atonement” and “Darkest Hour” behind the camera for the first two episodes. Can’t miss, right?
Alas.
“The Agency” is a great-looking series with something of a fresh twist in that it’s as much about office politics as the action in the field, but the first few episodes throw us deep into the weeds of a convoluted plot, and the scripts call for a number of supposedly very smart people to do some truly stupid things. The feature film-level aesthetics are impressive, but the multiple storylines are sluggish and in some cases difficult to follow.
Michael Fassbender is a master at playing icy cool detachment with a hot sense of passion boiling beneath the surface, and he’s perfectly cast as the CIA special agent code-named “Martian.” (He’s the kind of guy who might have been tasked with taking down the assassin Fassbender played in David Fincher’s “The Killer.”)
Martian has spent the last six years undercover, but when he’s summoned back to London, he abruptly ends a longtime affair with the married college professor Dr. Sami Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith) in Ethiopia and resumes his “normal” life, which includes reuniting with his daughter Poppy (India Fowler). Assimilation can be a tricky thing for agents who have been in the field for so long, and the company keeps a close eye on Martian to make sure he doesn’t snap or get careless. Two agents tail Martian everywhere he goes, and he’s required to meet with a behavioral psychologist (Harriet Sansom Harris), and you can imagine how smoothly those sessions go.
“The Agency” spends a good deal of time on workplace drama, but it feels like some characters are redundant. Jeffrey Wright is outstanding as Henry, who is Martian’s mentor and best friend (basically the same person as Wright’s CIA operative Felix Leiter from the “Bond” movies), and Richard Gere is in prime strutting silver-fox mode as Bosko, the London station chief — but if that’s not enough in the way of supervisor-type roles, we also get Dominic West in a Zoom-meeting role as the director of the CIA. Oh, and Katherine Waterston is Naomi, who was Martian’s handler when he was out in the field and seems to have a soft spot for him.
Even though Martian has been warned to stay away from Sami as it could compromise his identity, he can’t resist seeing her again, and again. Much of their time together is spent bickering about Martian leaving Sami, and the whole thing is tedious. At one point when they’re arguing in broad daylight in London, and Sami says, “This isn’t working,” well, we can relate.