TV Review: Condor (2018). A tight, paranoid, spy thriller.

Image courtesy of Audience

Tv Review: Condor (2018) by Ben Jeffries (21/8/2018)

Season 1 (6/6/2018)

10 Episodes, 47-53 minutes

Thriller, Drama, Action,

Available on Audience Network

A paranoid spy thriller, updated for the times, with exactly the amount of double crosses and intrigue you would expect.

Condor, adapted by Todd Katzburg, Jason Smilovic and Ken Robinson from the 1975 screenplay for Three Days of the Condor, follows CIA analyst Joe Turner (Max Irons) as he is dragged into a high level conspiracy when he is the only survivor of a deadly shooting at his office. Deputy Directors of the CIA, billionaire private military moguls, mercenaries, hired assassins, Al Qaeda operatives, and FBI officers all attempt to outmaneuver each other in a bloody struggle over a plot to release a plague that will kill millions.

The first episode of Condor sets up a compelling show. Joe is picked up during his morning run through the streets of Washington D.C., by the CIA. They’ve used an algorithm that Joe and his team have built to identify an imminent biological terrorist attack on a football game, and they need his input to confirm the threat is valid. Countless lives are saved. In the course of investigating the foiled attack Joe discovers financial irregularities that could link the attack to an American private military company. The conspirators in the CIA who planned the attack realise that this lead could implicate them, and Joe’s entire office is gunned down by two masked shooters as the conspirators attempt to cover their tracks. Only Joe survives, escaping on foot, running into the city as we see intercut scenes of the same plague from the earlier attack being delivered to Saudi Arabia, hinting at a bigger global agenda behind the conspirators actions. It’s a well scripted episode that clearly sets the stakes for the show moving forward. But it also sets the basic blueprint for the show moving forward. Joe survives a violent attack, usually at the hands of CIA assassin Gabrielle Joubert (Leem Lubany), whose mechanical, emotionless professionalism is thoroughly menacing. Joe escapes and finds help, aided at a distance by his uncle and CIA superior Bob Partridge (William Hurt), a career spy with a business like demeanor and a piercing stare that make his quiet threats entirely intimidating. Joe then watches as the people who helped him are violently killed, again by the seemingly unstoppable Joubert, before once more running away. In the gaps between these routine moments Joe does his best to help stop the terror attack he knows is coming. The show has been renewed by Audience for a second season, so hopefully we get to see Joe in a more proactive role in the future but here he is essentially pinballed from one stylishly filmed violent exchange to the next.

“Stylish” is a key word for Condor. It’s a good looking show. Shot with a cinematic sensibility using wide framing and fixed cameras, the treatment gives the material a glossy, smooth texture on screen. After the initial attack at Joe’s office the colour palette is graded heavily toward shades of grey and brown, deliberately desaturated to reflect the tense, bleak, tone of the writing, and it’s not until the epilogue of the final episode that we see more natural tones return. The stylish production makes extensive use of location backgrounds to ground events in a real, believable, world. It’s very much a love letter to the spy thriller films of decades past where spies quietly exchanged secret information while smoking cigarettes in a park rather than chasing each other over rooftops and through construction sites. That said, the shots of Mecca, done with cgi by necessity, are a little on the obvious side and the scenes shot on location in Florence are filled with people obviously just watching the show being filmed which tends to deflate the tension. The dedication to shoot on location where possible has to be respected though, and when it pays off the results speak for themselves. The same dedication can be seen in almost every element of the production. Action scenes are deliberately filmed, never leaning on the crutch of jump-cut and shaky-cam techniques to try and heighten the adrenalin, while gun play and hand-to-hand combat are realistically brutal. The limited number of vehicle stunts were either done entirely practically or enhanced with very well done cgi effects, resulting in effective, impactive, on screen action.

The cast are all in good form, delivering smart, interesting characters. William Hurt’s quiet intensity and piercing stare help create a character in Bob Partridge of man with a sharp intellect whose threats are entirely believable as he struggles to save his nephew from the politics and plots that surround them both. Leem Lubany plays the classic role of the emotionless assassin, a professional killer tasked with tying up the loose end that is Joe Turner. More a force of nature than an actual character, Lubany delivers a motivated character despite a limited script. The stand out performance in Condor is Brendan Frasier. Playing Nathan Fowler, a mid level executive at a private military contractor and a key member of the conspiracy, Frasier manages to bring the characters entire back story into every scene. His nervous, awkward demeanor belies his fanatical determination, and both are in contrast to the absolutely gentle, loving father he plays to his daughter, while all three facets of his personality are clearly elements of one complicated whole. Every time Nathan is on screen we learn something about him, not just through script and dialogue, but through Frasier’s performance. Frasier takes what could easily have become a cliche of a character and instead presents a man that is the most interesting character in the entire show and, while his exit is thematically and narratively appropriate, it’s a loss for the show moving forward. As the lead, Max Irons has a difficult job playing Joe, and he manages to find a balance between the characters intelligence, paranoia, fatigue, and righteous determination without ever crossing the line into “raving”.

Our hero Joe is the quintessential good guy. In the opening episode of the season we see him stand up to his CIA colleagues and question their seemingly automatic escalation to violence when they even suspect a terror plot might be in motion. He’s conflicted when the attack is foiled, the attacker shot dead by police, relieved that no-one else was harmed but uncomfortable with the seemingly inevitable nature of the attackers death. The CIA used his algorithm to spy on thousands of innocent people. Does stopping that attack justify such invasion of privacy? “Where’s the line?” he asks a colleague. He’s an idealist. In flashback we see a young Joe Turner, asked by his uncle Bob, “What number of people would it take for you to consider sacrificing one life to save them?” Joe’s answer: “No number. If you don’t pick a number then you can’t lower it.” The entire season seems geared towards trying to make Joe pick that number, but when the time finally comes for Joe to choose whether or not he’s willing to sacrifice for the greater good the show flubs the moment, cutting away from the dramatic scene only to relegate it to a flashback under dialogue minutes later. The beat goes from being about the characters crisis to one of plot expediency, completely stepping on the dramatic impact of the lead characters crucial decision and killing any tension in both that scene and the later scene where he is confronted with the consequences of his choice. Such problems seem caused by condensing story beats to fit the 10 episode run, but there were other places those cuts could have been made.

Condor seems to want to explore timely and pointed themes of fanaticism, the relationship between allegiance and the responsibility to act, and the idea that anything you try to change will probably change you in the process. Unfortunately the show doesn’t seem able to get far enough away from it’s own genre trappings to actually say anything pointed about those ideas. In the end Condor seems content to say that nine times out of ten self interest will trump the greater good, and the only people whose actions you can ever really trust are the ones without any ideals or morals. The show does attempt to flip what have become tired stereotypes of the genre on their head. What if the religious fanatics weren’t brown people from the middle east, but nerdy white guys from Washington, with beer bellies and glasses? What if the terrorist attack wasn’t planned for D.C. or New York or London, but instead it was targeted at Mecca, during the Haj, the Muslim pilgrimage? What if, by attempting to stop the terrorist attack you risked turning half the world against your own country, potentially starting World War III instead of preventing it? Those are all interesting slants on played out tropes but the show never manages to engage with them at a level beyond the superficial. Updates to a tired classic without any new substance. Like painting a room and then filling it with the same old furniture. Bad guys are still bad guys, the super assassin is still an undying killing machine who only cares about getting paid, and everyone is willing to betray everyone else to reach their own goals.

Condor is a sleek, modern version of classic paranoid spy thrillers, by turns kinetic and contemplative. If you’re a fan of the genre or looking for some more mature feeling action fare in your television diet, it looks the part and delivers exactly what you expect. In this first season it never really steps beyond it’s own genre limitations, feeling more familiar than it perhaps should, but with a second season on order, and the finale setting the stage for a more proactive role for the hero, perhaps it’s sophomore season can elevate the show beyond the level of competent genre entry.

6.5/10

Condor Stars: Max Irons, Kristin Hager, William Hurt, Leem Lubany, Brendan Frasier, Bob Balaban, Mira Sorvino, Katherine Cunningham, Melissa O’Neil

Created by: Todd Katzburg, Jason Smilovic

Written by: Todd Katzburg, Jason Smilovic, Ken Robinson

Directed by: Andrew McCarthy, Lawrence Trilling, Kari Skogland, Jason Smilovic

a Production from: Apophasisunproductions, Audience Network, MGM Television, Paramount Television, Skydance Television

Distributed by: The Audience Network