We've never seen Eddie Redmayne like this

With his uber posh English accent and timeless good looks, Eddie Redmayne could have carved out a successful career as a period drama regular. But instead, we’ve seen him play an incredible range of roles, from physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (which earned him an Oscar) to the pining soldier Marius in Les Miserables to – controversially – a transgender woman in The Danish Girl. His latest part, as the titular assassin in Top Boy creator Ronan Bennett’s slick interpretation of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel, is different once again. We’ve never seen him this cold.

Departing from both the book and Fred Zinneman’s celebrated 1973 film iteration, this new 10-part series of The Day of the Jackal updates the action to the modern day and shifts the Jackal’s target. While the original story saw the killer go after French president Charles de Gaulle, here Redmayne’s Jackal is paid in the millions to take out tech billionaire Ulle Dag Charles (Khalid Abdalla, whom you might recognise as Dodi Fayed in The Crown).

Charles is about to unleash his latest invention unto the world – a programme that would make all bank accounts visible to anyone wishing to look. Understandably, some very powerful people are keen to put a stop to his ideas.

For an assassin as unforgiving and accurate as the Jackal, it shouldn’t be a problem. But an earlier hit job – a breathtaking feat which we get to see every tense second of – makes him sloppy after the client sends him a “f**k you” message instead of his promised payout. Rather than focus on the task at hand, the Jackal chases down his money leaving bodies and explosions in his wake – no wonder MI6 are on his tail.

The Day of the Jackal would have worked if it only focused on the assassin’s meticulously planned antics. But while he’s planting car bombs and taking perfect headshots from miles away, British intelligence agent Bianca (Lashana Lynch) is tracking him down. Unlike Redmayne, Lynch may be being pigeonholed; she was also a secret agent in the 2021 Bond film No Time to Die. And for good reason – she’s great at it.

The series develops into a hair-raising, action-packed cat-and-mouse chase across Europe. We spend time in France, Belarus, Germany and more, with Redmayne showing off his Spanish, German and French along the way (alongside a range of disguises complete with wigs and prosthetics). Its wide scope makes the series feel sumptuous and expansive: any twist or turn could happen at any moment – and it does.

There is some bagginess to abide. Ten hours is a lot of time to fill, and it does so by fleshing out the Jackal and Bianca’s home lives, striving to draw obvious comparisons between the enemies. Both have to keep the true nature of their work a secret and spend a lot of time away from their spouses, causing strain and plenty of arguments. It’s certainly no bad thing to have characters fully fleshed out and humanised – but it does somewhat detract from the action and frequently interrupts the tension.

Nevertheless, this is no doubt one of Redmayne’s finest performances and while his assassin is stoic and unfeeling, his unsettling shapeshifting into multiple aliases allows him to flex every acting muscle he has. When we’re given access to his complex killing set ups – false flag attempts and sniper rifles that fold away to nothing – The Day of the Jackal is a thrill ride all the way to the end.

The first five episodes of ‘The Day of the Jackal’ are streaming on Now. The next five will be released weekly