On January 24, the showing of the spy thriller ended on the Paramount+ with Showtime channel «The Agency» — an adaptation of the famous French series «The Bureau of Legends», which was broadcast on Canal+ from 2015 to 2020. The project is notable not only for being produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s Smoke House Pictures but also because it features Ukraine and, accordingly, the well-known Ukrainian actor Oleksandr Rudynsky. In this review, we analyze what role our country plays in the plot and whether the local spy passions are worth the viewer’s attention.
Genre spy thriller
Producers George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Starring Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jodie Turner-Smith, Richard Gere, Katherine Waterston, Dominic West, Sergiy Onopko, Oleksandr Rudynsky
Premiere Paramount+ with Showtime
Release year 2024
Website IMDb
The mission of a CIA secret agent under the codename «Martian» (at this point probably geeked out Matt Damon), which took place in Africa and lasted 6 years, is suddenly aborted. The operative is ordered to return to the London intelligence office and switch to a new task related to a missing agent in Belarus «Coyote». For now, it is unclear what happened to him, but if he is exposed, as suddenly Lukashenko is again aware of where the attack was planned from, it risks catastrophic consequences. This includes for undercover agents currently operating in the occupied territory of Ukraine.
However, Martian’s focus on work is hindered by his romantic feelings for anthropology professor Sami Zahir, who also magically ends up in London. The inability to immediately switch to a new mode after a long existence in the shell of another personality. The complications are exacerbated by the fact that the CIA agent is under round-the-clock surveillance, as per protocol.
Meanwhile, the curator of Martian’s mission in Africa, Naomi, begins to prepare a young Iranian colleague, Danni Moratu, whose task is to gain the trust of Professor Reza Mortazavi and with his help get into Tehran. Under the watchful guidance of the veterans Henry Ogletree and James Bradley, the London CIA office is preparing for momentous operations, meaning — extremely tense working days.
The main spy passions, supported exclusively by pale and gloomy shades and completely somber, thoughtful facial expressions, occur in stifling offices, while action in the fields is relegated somewhere to the periphery of the plot.
Before starting to watch, it is essential to understand this; otherwise, the series risks seeming terribly boring. Indeed, to some extent, it is, as interesting scenes (understandably, the Ukrainian arc is the most interesting for the Ukrainian viewer) are adjacent to frankly boring ones, and along with anxious, truly captivating plot lines coexist unnecessary ones, which only distract from the main narrative and further confuse the viewer.
Losing the thread of the story here is extremely easy.
The story features a plethora of characters of various degrees of importance and different nationalities, and moreover, they speak English, Farsi, Ukrainian, and broken Russian. Troubling Ukrainian realities alternate with a sleepy, seemingly indifferent London and vice versa. From the gray office spaces of the CIA, the plot jumps to familiar post-Soviet landscapes supposedly in Belarus (like the unattractive building with a sign «Cosmetics “Svetlana”»), which were actually filmed in Tallinn. Add to this the non-linearity of the narrative, and then following everything that happens on the screen will not be so simple.
At the same time, following the personal life of the main character played by Fassbender, that is — the romantic line, as well as his relationships with his daughter Poppy, is much less interesting than the professional. Amid the adventures of Martian, the arc of the young operative, who must «conquer» Tehran, frankly fades and looks like a fifth wheel. Understandably, the authors tried to be close to the French hit original, aiming at contemporary geopolitics, but they did not succeed in harmoniously combining all the elements of the story.
But this does not mean that «The Agency» is not worth attention. Sometimes the space in the frame becomes so electrified that it seems as if the tense atmosphere will now crack the screen, from which it is simply impossible to look away (cliffhangers at the ends of episodes, by the way, work well).
You really worry about the guys undercover in occupied territory. Among them, as well as all these star-studded Richard Gere’s and Fassbender’s, you can see our Oleksandr Rudynsky, who with the shout «Glory to Ukraine, b*tches!», as in the screenlife thriller «Stay Online» (2023), shoots back from the cursed occupiers, this time at an enemy checkpoint. Among other things, there will also be «Valhalla» — an analogue of the PMC «Wagner» with its own bald commander, who, let’s not spoil, plays his role in the plot. The overall tension is aided by an appropriate soundtrack, which with its clinking sounds emphasizes the nervousness of one situation or another.
Of course, «The Agency» is far from a revelation in the spy thriller genre. The series is saturated with genre clichés, such as the main character’s attempts to have a personal life while working, or the grueling checks of field agents for endurance, and alternates realistic moments with some fantastic ones, and captivating ones — with frankly boring ones. If you could squeeze the most interesting parts from the heavyweight story and put them into a more concise narrative — it would have been much better. However, even in its current form, the project has something to offer the interested viewer.
