Slow Horses is very entertaining thanks to Oldman Gary's wise cracks and farts and Kirsten Scott Thomas' class, but it is so meaningless and vapid.
The Agency is pretty damn clever and complicated. I am glad it has been renewed for at least a second season. The plots are think and the writing sharp and clever.
The other good political/semi-spy show is The Diplomat.
Slooooow Horses, but even better than both of them is The Bureau, the original that this is based on.
shareNowhere to watch it now though. I think it is in French if I am not mistake.
I've always liked foreign French movies and in fact I just finished one. I rented Woody Allen's Coup de Chance which is really good.
If I see anywhere I can stream "The Bureau" I will have to check it out. I seriously doubt it can be better that this new American version, "The Agency", which I am awed by.
The Bureau tops everything. Not many have seen the original. I’m assuming you have. How do you compare the two? To me, The Agency is lagging? What do you think of Kassovitz vs. Fassbender?
shareSo far The Bureau is tighter and makes more sense.
Both the guys act well, but I prefer Nadia from the original. I don't see the chemisty with Sami. I also slightly prefer the original Henry with that raincoat and perpetual dour expression.
Robert from Downton certainly seems to be an interesting twist so maybe it will start diverging a lot with his story.
I was surprised that they repeated the story about the boots. Of course new boots feel different than boots you've broken in! How could anyone miss that?
But we'll keep watching and see what they Clooney & co. have come up with.
The Bureau makes way more sense. Has way more style. Better writing.
Nadia was central and much of the story revolved around her and Malotru. She had chemistry with Malotru. There is no chemistry with Samia and Martian. Yes, Henry played by Darroussin was perfect but I do like Wright. Henry the actor is good in everything - all of his French movies, I particularly liked Red Lights 2004. And, if the season goes forward, he has a huge story that takes place in S3.
I also like the French version’s casting of the women much better.
They are repeating every detail in every plot just different names. It didn’t surprise me about the boots because it is essential to the plot.
I don’t think Fassbender is good in this. In other things, yes. But his voice is flat and he is constantly in instruction mode and he’s upstaging Gere and Wright ever which way. And he looks awful. What happened to him. He looks like he’s been on a yearslong bender. Malotru as portrayed by Mathieu Kassovitz was the most proficient and magnificent spy. He just did it all without you knowing what he was doing AND WITHOUT TELLING YOU. Fassbender might as well turn toward the camera and tell you what he’s doing step by step. I know this series gets a second season. People do not have access to the original because this one is out. So it will not be seen. Clooney is probably thinking that this UK/US series is a gift to those who will never get to see the original.
Agree with virtually all this. You know, a funny thing that keeps happening with this show is that I keep asking questions like "Is that the Raymond?", "Is that the Sylvain?", "Is that the Marie-Jeanne?" :)
By the way, how many episodes have you seen so far? We're up to 8.
People reading here might like to know that the same people who created this show also created A French Village, which is a World War II story that overall is probably even superior to The Bureau. But the latter is probably the finest and most realistic spy story made to date.
I saw French Village before I saw The Bureau. I agree - this is another one of the best series ever created. German occupation of a French town during WWII. You probably know that this is heralded as one of the best by most cinephiles. Also great, is the French policier, Spiral (Engregages). How many years was this one on for? It would take them a year to write all the episodes and at some point you had to wait two years to see.
Yes, French cast of The Bureau vs. The Agency. So, we all know Raymond, Marina, Marie-Jeanne - but who is Gere? Mag or JJA? And I didn’t realize until you spoke of it - Sylvain. My favorite in the French one was the psychologist, played by Lea Drucker.
What I just realized in saying in my previous response to you about how flat Fassbender’s speaking manner is and that he is British and his American accent is not as good because of this lack of inflection. It really isn’t. Of course, just listen to Gere - who is American and he speaks American. And Wright has got it down but the non-American ones don’t - and they are the two women, Naomi (Katherine Waterson - this is Marie-Jeanne, and Ruiz (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) as Marina. Both these actresses’ voices are getting on my nerves. No one talks like that here. And I have to say, unless you are present at a Kristen Stewart in-person interview, no one swears THAT much, certainly in a professional and public setting. I think most people in UK think Americans have a certain way of expressing themselves and they are going over the top on that - just as some people expect black Americans to speak a certain way and tell them to talk black.
We just finished ep. 9 - So there is one episode left. I loved all seasons of The Bureau - the one in S3 with the dog got to me like nothing ever has. And the last season’s finale, I have not recovered from. It is good that they are doing this remake a couple of years after the original, otherwise it could be dated.
I have to ask you if you are British - because not only does the UK have some of the best TV shows ever, they do go outside and watch other European shows - especially, Nordic Noir - and American shows, and they have made their own remakes - like Wallander. Their The Tunnel was spectacular from Bron/Broen (The Bridge). If you are from US, it would be interesting to know how you came across The Bureau as most Americans have not seen it. I think. It’s been on Prime Video for at least 6 years with the Sundance channel.
When I see Martian with his daughter, I can’t help but think of the movie Fish Tank.
Ah, appreciate the tip on Engrenages.
One of the things about The Bureau was that it was the French spies v. the CIA. The new show got rid of that, which I consider taking a risk because that was one of the interesting tensions in the show. I think it will mean they'll need to diverge a lot. So at the upper levels there's less of a one-to-one mapping.
The psychiatrist in this one is kind of funny because she's played by the woman who plays Bebe the evil publicist on Frasier, haha! So it's going to take me a while to take her seriously. But again, this character won't be as interesting because the France v. US dimension is missing.
I was kind of hoping they would get the original Mule to play the Mule again, since she usually doesn't talk much anyway, but no such luck. I suppose it's boring to play the same role all over again.
I don't mind the accents too much because I figure they've been in the UK a long time and probably started picking up the accent, as a lot of expat Americans do. I think Richard Gere, who I normally like a lot, so far is a little bit off. Not sure why. Like it's a bit like he's not the lead and he's just doing it for the paycheck. But maybe he's trying to do some kind of withdrawn thing. We'll have to see how it develops.
Tell me, did you ever find it weird that Marie-Jeanne is always wearing a coat for about three seasons, even inside? I was speculating that she was pregnant during those seasons.
In the US and yes, the days when we made good remakes of foreign projects seem to be gone. These days we mostly dumb them down and ruin them.
I found this show because we really enjoyed A French Village. When I find something really good, I take a look at what else these creators have made and saw that The Bureau was the next one so I got it from the library on DVD. I saw the A French Village because it's on a free service we have here: kanopy.com.
Haven't seen Fish Tank, but it has good ratings.
Two leads in French Village - played by the magnificent Audrey Fleurot and Thierry Godard are also main characters in Spiral.
Yes, CIA vs. French spies - was a fantastic element - one of the best - and we won’t see it. Maybe they have something else planned. I don’t think Gere character was ever in original as he is the CIA Station Chief of London Station - do you see a character that correlates? Anyway, I think Gere’s might be an original to US/UK version and I like him - a lot - but he’s not very smart. Probably the first bit of poor writing in deviating from the original.
I don’t remember Marie-Jeanne wearing a coat. I remember her and Marina being diminutive. Marie-Jeanne has a huge story in all seasons and I don’t like the American counterpart that much.
I watch Kanopy as well but The Bureau is no longer on it at least from what I can see. Eric Rochant (the creator) did an Israel/French spy movie years before The Bureau called The Patriots. It’s on Tubi. Fassbender played a cad in Fish Tank where he was a married man with a daughter, and he has an affair with a single mom and seduces her teenage daughter. Martian united with Poppy often resembles that relationship and it’s difficult for me at times when he’s alone in the flat with his daughter that I don’t think of it.
Slow Horses is fun. It has whimsy. The agents are not that good except for Lamb. The banter is also fun. In a weird way, it reminds me of North by Northwest for tone and seriousness. The Diplomat is good - especially second season - but not as good as House of Cards. And there is a disbelief that Keri’s character could ever be all that. But Allison Janney’s is another story. Loved watching the new The Day of the Jackal and Black Doves, but they are kind of like adventure stories and nothing as realistic and tense and nerve-racking as the stories in The Bureau. That one soars above everything else.
In the French version there are some higher up guys who serve to check or enable the plans of Henry and Paul, mostly providing background reality. I guess the Gere character would correspond to one of those, but his character is much more in the forefront. Not even sure if we knew the names of those others.
Maybe we'll see CIA v. MI5/MI6?
Here's a shot of the coat she would always wear in the early seasons: https://www.spotern.com/en/wanted/tv/the-bureau/56001/the-red-coat-mary-jane-duthilleul-florence-loiret-caille-in-the-office-of-legends-season-1
Sounds like Fish Tank is something I'd prefer to avoid!
It's confusing that there are two different shows called The Diplomat. Wonder how that happened.
When I think of Marie-Jeanne - what I remember most was her time in Cairo. I just can’t remember that coat. I remember Henri’s.
Fish Tank is a powerful little movie - won the jury prize at Cannes and a BAFTA - uncomfortable subject but there it is. The director did another movie I liked more called Red Road. If you had seen Fish Tank, my reference to Martian and Poppy would make more sense and since you didn’t, just delete that line.
So I am confused - with The Diplomat - which one are they comparing Slow Horses to? Oldman and Saskia and Kristin are all excellent.
I still think the Brits playing Americans are just not good enough in The Agency. Just not up to par. The actual American actors are much better than the Brits. I can’t believe I would ever say that but I don’t like some of the casting.
Probably the Keri Russell one. We saw a couple episodes of the Sophie Rundle one and were underwhelmed.
In acting there are always at least three things to consider: the writing, the directing and the actors' choices. I'm not sure they've been given enough to work with here.
So you like Black Doves? I kind of thought that that show was made because of the success of Slow Horses. Take an adjective, add an animal plural and voila! ;) I have trouble imagining Keira Knightley as a spy. It's like Lucy Liu as a martial arts hero. Just doesn't seem plausible. Have to admit it's got a 7.2 rating though...
I have trouble imagining any of these shows as spies - they are more like musicals. It’s all just an amusing show. Especially a lot of Netflix shows. Black Doves - the actor I liked best was Ben Whishaw (who wasn’t nominated), not Keira (nominated). But all of these, Black Doves, Mr. & Mrs. Smith could really break into song. I liked Mr. & Mrs. Smith though - it was meant to be tongue in cheek. I think the worst one was Argylle.
The Day of the Jackal is based on an actual incident and the original was such a great movie. I didn’t mind the modernization of it and Redmayne is great. I too turned off Randle movie - I just remembered I did that. I did like Killing Eve first two seasons and then they decided to make it a love story. Fassbender in The Killer is much like Martian in The Agency. That horrible accent. I think I might have to wait on The Agency and try and forget it and then binge the whole thing later and see what it is like. I really want to like it. Just recalled, I loved the actors who portrayed the CIA in The Bureau. YouKnowWho was from Texas originally. Thank god they got someone who could do a real Texan drawl. And not a Benoit Blanc. I liked the way that series portrayed the Americans.
The Bureau is just the one that you learn so much. In S3, there’s the whole thing with Daesh. Marina as Phénomène infiltrating the Iranian nuclear facility - but what she and Zamani go through in interrogation. One of my favorites was when she was Rocambole in Baku, Azerbaijan and stopped the Mossad hit team. Just the techniques used. But it is the “secondary” characters who are so fascinating. I felt tension, I was scared. It was worrisome. All these feelings I don’t feel at all in other spy shows. Save for le Carré or Army of Shadows. In Slow Horses, Oldman as Lamb, is brilliant. He is what makes the show. Just the dialogue - his way of speaking is what is fantastic. And, that show seems to hinge on the Cold War - in The Bureau, it is the new world we are living in now.
The last few episodes of The Bureau, Rochant turned everything over to Jacques Audiard and it is his ending. I often wondered what Rochant’s ending would have looked like. This is the thing I reflect mostly about that series. The Ending. Without talking about the ending.
Yes, we're currently also watching The Hour and enjoying the talented Whishaw in that.
My significant other really liked Jackal too! I avoided it. Don't like hit man-centered vehicles. Don't like the whole anti-hero thing. That's not what we should be glorifying. But that's just me.
Killing Eve seemed too grim so we avoided it, despite absolutely loving Oh.
You raise a good point. People who've never seen the French original may have an entirely different take than we do. It may stand on its own okay if one is unaware of what came before.
That Texas guy was okay, but probably a little too cliche. I know people in the intelligence community. It's generally not like that. A better example would probably be that recent movie retelling the Robert Hansen story.
Yes, the French original really makes you feel you're almost watching real events as they happen. Two of my favorite moments that relate to what you're talking about are (1) when Marie-Jeanne realizes that Marina is being recruited by Mossad and that there's no need to worry about it because Mossad will now start providing everything - what a neat solution(!), and (2) when Mossad finally try to arrest Marina and she reveals who she really is and then they react in a way that is surprising and yet entirely logical. It's a superb moment.
Yes, Oldman is pretty much brilliant in everything.
I wouldn't hope for much from an ending from Rochant. I don't think he likes to do endings. His point of view is that ideally there would never be an ending because in real life there is no ending. It just goes on and on. But in an ending you need to wrap stuff up, make some kind of overall statement and all that artificial stuff. He has no interest in all that because it's false, at least in most cases.
I saw The Hour over ten years ago. They called it UK’s answer to Mad Men. I loved it so much and then the BBC canceled it. Something to do with viewership. Earlier, they had canceled Zen - another one I liked because it was filmed in Rome.
Did you see the 1973 movie The Day of the Jackal. It is on best film lists including Kurosawa’s. It’s a great detective/spy novel. Based on 1962 assassination attempt of de Gaulle. Killing Eve - it’s hard to see this as grim. Grim was Se7en. Dexter would be considered a grim topic. Yet, these are all great. Grim with good writing is another thing. In some ways, there was a lot of grim in Boardwalk Empire. It’s always the writing for me. It seems that a series needs a showrunner who orchestrates everything from start to finish. Like David Chase with Sopranos, Matthew Weiner with Mad Men, David Simon with The Wire, Terence Winter in Boardwalk Empire, Michael Hirst in The Vikings. When there is one head writer for one season and another for another season - it doesn’t work like Killing Eve, Homeland, Peaky Blinders. The series fails.
I just saw a new premier of a Soderbergh movie with Fassbender and Cate Blanchett called Black Bag - and I can’t believe how much better I like him with a British accent.
I am not sure this new series of The Agency will even get to 5 seasons and if it does, I bet the writing will then depart from the original. I watch this US/UK one and I don’t even think about it later. It is not memorable at all. I’m on S3 of Slow Horses and it’s wearing me down. You know the CIA head in le Carre’s A Most Wanted Man - Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last movie was good - Robin Wright. Do you see that one? Talk about grim.
Yep, we just finished The Hour and lamented its premature death. There are a lot of familiar faces and an interesting mystery storyline. It has
the walk and talks of The West Wing, the atmosphere (and smoking!) of Mad Men
and the behind-the-scenes feel of Sports Night or Newsroom. The real question is why people didn't watch it. I'm thinking that maybe some of Bel's choices were too difficult to understand. She kept choosing to sleep with wrong guys and we are given to understand why. Then too, Freddie Lyon was kind of a pompous character who's always right. They should have allowed some of the other characters to have been right at least once in a while, and him wrong.
We just finished rewatching Zen as well. Stii good, and another early flameout, though I can see that the Italian co-production must have cost too much.
I didn't see the earlier Jackal though my partner did.
As to Killing Eve, well, it has Killing in the title, and I believe is classified as horror?
We liked the first couple of seasons of Boardwalk Empire, but stopped when the two protagonists turned on each other.
Vikings was okay, but we liked The Last Kingdom better for that sort of thing. We stopped Vikings after season 4 I think, right when that shipbuilder guy discovers Iceland.
I didn't care for Homeland, though partner watched a few seasons. Everyone calls the guy Brody! Even his wife! And it's his last name! We like Damian Lewis a lot, but much prefer his series Life. 9/10 for that one.
I can't tell if you mean you're gaining or losing appreciation for Slow Horses? If the latter, we watched the episodes pretty much as they came out, rather than binging all the way through it. Probably a better way to go because it's possible to overdose on that sort of thing. Maybe that thought will help your enjoyment?
We seem to have missed A Most Wanted Man, though I see it gets only a 6.7. May check it out, thanks.
I saw all of the episodes of The Agency and I ended up not liking it at all. It made a huge detour from The Bureau in the last few episodes and a lot has to do with Martian’s relationship with himself. The real Malotru was so much better at his job than Martian who ends up just upstaging everybody especially his boss Gere (with endless football plays - although first time was great); completely ignoring everything he’s told to do; and the most important part - is what we are left with *spoiler* he’s turned in a way that I didn’t like. He stepped into it. While Malotru just manipulates and orchestrates and no one sees it coming. I really find this series not very good at all. No one has commented on it so I am assuming that no one was dazzled but I know you were watching and also saw the original - so I had to say something. Part of the problem is the CIA connection which is a conflict to the original story. The DGSE works better.
I discovered Eastern Gate (Polish, Russian, Belarusian TV spy series) that is excellent so far on Max.
Well, I try to reserve judgment in terms of similarity to the original. It has the right - some would say "duty" - to be its own thing, after all. As a piece of art it shouldn't just be a photocopy. And it's possible to have this story turn on different axes than the original.
On the other hand, in the first ten episodes it hasn't really distinguished itself as something special so far. But maybe they need more time to get there. There are plenty of shows that were not particularly good in their first two seasons. We'll see if they actually get that opportunity.
Thanks for the tip. We've been watching SS-GB, which is both a spy and a detective story at the same time. But we'll look into EG!
Yeah, definitely its own thing and yeah, did not distinguish itself as something special. Tried watching SS-GB but that is a difficult one for me - if Hitler had won. Easier to watch a giallo. But I couldn’t get past first episode. I actually didn’t think it was that good so I stopped.
Ah, I suppose you didn't watch Man in the High Castle either then. We've finished it now and though it pretty good. A lot of Germans maneuvering around each other. Sam Riley makes a good hero. 7/10
Next we're looking at Hanna, Army of Shadows and Havana.
This
shareIf it wasn't for Oldman, I wouldn't have watched SH.
This is a wokified and bastardised remake of a good series: The Bureau (TV Series 2015–2020)