The Day of the Jackal (2024) Review: A Killer Reloaded

Is The Day of the Jackal worth watching?

Yes. The Day of the Jackal is a slick, grown-up spy thriller that makes a fifty-year-old story feel current, and Eddie Redmayne’s controlled performance as the assassin is reason enough to start. The series is at its best when it simply watches a professional work: planning, disguising, adjusting, disappearing. The reservation is length. Ten episodes give the chase room to breathe, but they also give it room to wander, and the domestic subplots on both sides of the hunt do not always justify the time they take.

What is The Day of the Jackal about?

The Jackal is a lone contract killer, unrivalled at his trade and almost impossible to identify, who takes jobs for whoever pays the most. After one of his hits, he draws the attention of a British intelligence officer played by Lashana Lynch, who becomes fixated on putting a face to the name. What follows is a cat-and-mouse pursuit across Europe, with each side learning the other’s habits while the collateral damage mounts.

The Day of the Jackal is a British production in English, created by Ronan Bennett and loosely drawn from Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel, which was previously filmed in 1973. Rather than retelling the book’s plot, it keeps the core idea, a faceless assassin and the investigator determined to stop him, and moves it into a present-day world of surveillance, encrypted money and private power. The cast also includes Úrsula Corberó, Eleanor Matsuura and Chukwudi Iwuji. This review covers season one, ten episodes that premiered on Sky in 2024; the show is continuing, so the story is not finished.

Redmayne plays a craftsman, not a myth

Redmayne is an unexpected choice for a hired killer, and the casting pays off precisely because he does not play it as menace. His Jackal is a technician: patient, fussy about detail, quietly pleased when a plan comes together. The camera follows him through fittings, rehearsals and false identities with the absorbed attention of a heist film, and those procedural stretches are the show’s purest pleasure.

What keeps the character unsettling is how ordinary he can make himself look. Redmayne shifts accent, posture and manner from one persona to the next, and the series trusts viewers to track the changes without underlining them. The less he says, the better he is.

Lynch gives the hunt a pulse

Lashana Lynch has the less glamorous role and makes it the emotional centre. Her officer is abrasive, driven and willing to bend rules and relationships to get closer to her quarry, and Lynch plays that obsession without asking for sympathy. The best sequences cut between the two leads as they close in on each other, with the tension built from near misses and small deductions rather than constant gunfire.

The production has the gloss of a high-end prestige thriller. European locations are used for texture rather than postcard views, the action is staged cleanly, and when violence arrives it is sudden and blunt. Bennett’s writing is sharpest in the intelligence-agency scenes, where institutional caution and personal ambition collide.

Where ten hours pull the thread loose

The trade-off for this much screen time is sag. Both leads are given home lives meant to show the cost of their work, and while Úrsula Corberó brings warmth to her part of the Jackal’s world, those scenes often repeat a point the show has already made. The middle episodes in particular slow the chase to make space for them. Some turns also rely on coincidence or conveniently timed breakthroughs, the kind of shortcut the tightest thrillers avoid. None of it undoes the central duel, but a sharper edit could have made this a great series rather than a very good one.

Who should watch The Day of the Jackal?

It suits viewers who like spy stories played straight, with professionals, tradecraft and pressure rather than gadgets and jokes. The ten-episode season needs a real commitment, though each hour moves well on its own. Expect bursts of strong violence, some sexual content and plenty of adult language; it is aimed squarely at adults.

If it appeals, try these next from the drama shelf:

• Bodyguard, another British thriller where political power and personal loyalty collide at high speed.
• Line of Duty for institutional cat-and-mouse and interrogations that play like action scenes.
• More from the same channel on the Sky hub.

The verdict

The Day of the Jackal takes a classic assassination thriller and rebuilds it for a world of data trails and deniable money, with Redmayne and Lynch as worthy opponents. It is longer than it needs to be and its subplots dilute the tension, but the core chase is gripping and handsomely made.

Rating: 4/5