The Night Agent review: Is the new Netflix show worth watching?
Netflix added yet another spy thriller to its large catalog with The Night Agent, a new production from Shawn Ryan that follows the story of the namesake novel by Matthew Quirk. Following in the footsteps of Amazon Prime Video, which has released many spy titles like Jack Ryan, Reacher, and The Terminal List, Netflix has followed up its previous show, The Recruit, with this one.
The first thing that most viewers will notice is the similarity to Netflix's previous spy thriller The Recruit, which starred Noah Centineo as a young employee at the CIA. Though starkly similar in premise, The Night Agent is certainly a big improvement over it, with more panache in the storytelling, an engaging storyline that is easy to follow, and some great work from the lead duo.
While this will not go on to become an Emmy-winning wonder, it is still a pleasantly surprising binge-watching material, which does not overcompensate anything and is breezy throughout.
Disclaimer: The thoughts reflected in this article prely reflect that of the author's, which maybe subjective.
The Night Agent review: Surprisingly smooth storytelling but...
Netflix shows seem to always come with a "but" these days. At first glance, this new 10-episode ride with Gabriel Basso's Peter Sutherland is quite a cliche thriller series. But what sets it apart is its simplicity and direct-to-point plot lines.
The story begins with Peter working a night shift in the basement of the White House after surviving a terrorist attack months prior. With hardly any work, the agent's life is suddenly thrown into adrenaline-filled action when he receives a call from tech CEO Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan), who bears witness to the assassination of her aunt and uncle.
Following a few cliches, everything from this assassination to the terrorist attack is all linked and Peter becomes the suspect in the case. This is quite close to the source material and also feels like a pretty decent adaptation in every sense. The cliches of the genre cloud the story of Peter and his redemption arc, but the show still manages to pull off something special.
This special thing is the lack of overcomplicated plotlines, something that has dragged down so many otherwise good spy thrillers. The simple plotline, with so little to digress from the subject matter, is compelling enough. The episodes manage to be engaging for most of the season of The Night Agent, especially the last four episodes, which successfully pump up the tempo by quite a few notches.
The end of each episode is very cleverly constructed, featuring a cliffhanger that will probe viewers to search for answers. This is much like the first seasons of Netflix's You.
The only problem with this overly simple storytelling is the length of the series, which is rather big with 10 episodes of over 45 minutes each. It does sometimes feel like the series is wasting time just to fit the drama into the predecided episode length. If the series was shorter, maybe it could have been an even more intriguing watch. Other than that, some scenes feel a little melodramatic in comparison to the novel.
Despite the drawbacks, The Night Agent is a fascinating watch for anyone looking to engage in some binge therapy. It's not the best series out there and is not pretending to be one either. For what it is, it is a fun watch.
The Night Agent is now streaming on Netflix.
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Abhipsa Choudhury