The mutual dislike of the British and French is largely a myth, but both sides seem happy to support it. In any case, the first joint Anglo-French Apple TV + series is dedicated to the fact that the two great states are separated not only by the English Channel. France on the screen is represented by Vincent Cassel , Great Britain (fraudulently, of course) – bilingual Eva Green . Liaison can be seen as a run-through of their acting chemistry: later this year, a two-part French adaptation of The Three Musketeers (a work in which the theme of rivalry with the English is also not forgotten) will be released with fanfare, with Kassel playing Athos and Greene as Milady.
Authorship is also international. All six episodes were written by Frenchwoman Virginie Braque , a woman with extensive experience in telescripting and detective novels. The permanent director is the equally experienced Stephen Hopkins , who was not very lucky in Hollywood in the 1990s ( Predator 2 , Ghost and Darkness , Lost in Space ), and since then he has mostly been sitting on television (“24 hours, etc.).
It would probably be reckless to expect something revolutionary from these honored people, and the slogan “Do not stop at nothing to save everything”, clearly invented by a neural network, immediately sets one in a skeptical mood. However, from the first minutes of “Communication” one can see something else: a lot of money has been spent. Night panoramas of megacities float, familiar noses and cheekbones flash, a song of almost Bond strain plays in the credits, special effects are quite cinematic quality – this is a polished thriller that promises to entertain and demand nothing in return.
The hero of Kassel, Gabriel is a hardened agent of the special services, now working for a private office. He is sent to Syria to pull out two anti-Assad hackers who accidentally stumbled upon some sensitive information for the Europeans. Everything does not go according to plan: the Syrians end up in London, Gabriel goes there for them, and Alison (Eva Green) lives there – his old love, and now a high-ranking bureaucrat in state security structures. Meanwhile, someone is hacking London’s infrastructure and either blocking the dam, bringing the Thames out of its banks, or pushing trains, or simply turning the lights on and off, like a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Thus, we have one eye on the routine espionage plot involving cybercrime and rival agencies, and the other (wider eye) on when Gabriel and Alison will finally kiss (if at all). Moreover, if the first leads an unbridled lifestyle, befitting a single middle-aged superman, the second seems to be happy in alliance with a large but gentle lawyer. In addition, it is known that something went wrong with the heroes in the past. What exactly will become clear with time, but in vain: the story is stupid, in addition, it is illustrated by a video of an absolutely inexplicable, almost divine origin. Nevertheless, Gabriel, once in London, first of all runs to stand in the rain at the house of a woman whom he has not seen for 20 years, and Alison immediately starts biting her lips and listening to Massive Attack when she sees him.
In Paris, Hopkins liked the dusty courtyard of the Elysee Palace and the bohemian Point Ephemere, where for some reason Gabriel’s boss, played by Gerard Lanvin, likes to sit (as if the FSB general did not crawl out of the St. Petersburg bar “Chronicles”). In London, everything is modern, shiny and scans the iris. However, it gradually turns out that without old Europe, the British are nowhere: the moral of the series is clearly anti-Brexit.
It is interesting that in England we do not rise above the ministerial level ( Peter Mullan plays boss Alison with a trademark squint ), and the French just go to the president. The president is rather pale, but the head of intelligence is Irene Jacob . She is vying for influence with a nasty type who looks like an early 1990s chansonnier and behaves (perhaps for this reason) deeply immoral.
The script is a good three. All the way it is painfully obvious that the author knows exactly as much about the work of the special services and the European bureaucracy as any of us. It is impossible to believe in anything. Half the plot is based on coincidences. The final surprise is read in two episodes. This is not Slow Horses, and certainly not The Bureau .
However, due to the rapid rhythm (this is one of those series where every minute the scene of action of the Paris, Canal Saint-Martin format pops up, although most often this is absolutely superfluous information) and, of course, the actors, Communication remains watchable, and at some moments and exciting. And if the camera loves Eva Green, then she loves Kassel. The uniform of the superspy is a hipster leather jacket, from which he transforms into a social worker with the help of glasses and into a doctor with the help of (for some reason) a kippah; he chats in Arabic and rather fluent Russian, shoots without a miss, drives the car in an unconscious state, theatrically crawls out of the garbage dump, conducting surveillance. Since all this was filmed in earnest, it looks like a perfect parody. But Kassel does not lose his dignity – the amazing power of charisma. And now Eva Green sensually pulls the Taser hooks out of the veteran. There,
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