Skip to content
The Night Agent is another political drama series based upon a novel, and this time round, after giving up his seat on the subway, FBI bloke Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso – Hillbilly Elegy) spots some ne’er-do-well leaving a bag behind, quickly going into ‘Jack Bauer’ mode as a result, while trying to get everyone off as quickly as possible, before it inevitably explodes. Soon after, when spotting the hooded man, he heads off to catch him like Jason Bourne, albeit in an official capacity, since Matt Damon’s character did everything off the books.
Answering to The White House’s Chief of Staff Diane Farr (Hong Chau – The Menu, The Whale), Peter’s the titular Night Agent, so takes late-night calls from people who dial his batphone in distress. Tonight, his task, if he’s up to it, is to find the caller who rings, and go all ‘Jason Bourne‘ on any baddies they encounter.
Leading up to that, mom-and-pop happy-happy couple Emma (Simone Kessell – San Andreas) and Henry (William MacDonald) have some dodgy government stuff going on, and someone is lurking outside. Niece Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan) is panicking, and it all leads to her going on the run. Good job she’s second in the cast, because it means she’ll soon bump into Peter in order to further the plot.
Before long, internet loonies are also after Peter because they believe what they’ve read on an internet site called The Rome Tome, which is about as valid as the Daily Mail, as they think he was the cause of the subway explosion. As such, Peter must have a ‘wanker magnet’ in his car, because The Night Agent turns into a chase movie.
Meanwhile, Rose comes across as a bit dense as she tries to figure things out, although her character may be forced to take a long time for this, because the plot has to last ten episodes, showing yet again that some streaming dramas are dragged out far longer than they need to be, but then they’ve spent money on the actors and sets, so may as well get their money’s worth, I guess.
Also, The Night Agent is the kind of drama where someone is able to zoom in on an image with such detail that’s physically impossible outside of TV-world. Similarly, Rose is understandably unable to trust most people, and feels the only one she can is her saviour, Peter. And who can you trust when it seems everyone is after them, and every government around the world is so bent, they failed technical drawing at school because they couldn’t find a ruler that was straight!*
Yep, rack up those clichés…
Episode two takes a bit longer to get going – as it fills in some backstory – and it does stretch credibility a bit, but you can see what kind of show this is from the trailer: It’s entertainment, not a documentary.
I’ve watched two episodes so far, and you can spot when something crazy-predictable is happening, but then I don’t think The Night Agent is trying to be wholly 100% original, just entertaining, and it does a fair job of that. In fact, in terms of suspense, it does feel a bit like ‘24‘, at times, and so many thrillers fail to match that, so it’s a decent start.
Hong Chau is awesome as feisty hard-ass Chief of Staff Diane Farr, and there’s Terminator 2‘s Robert Patrick as grumpy Deputy Director Jamie Hawkins.
(*one of the perfect lines I remember in Eastenders, when I used to watch it, this one from Pete Beale to Dirty Den)
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
The Night Agent is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix from today.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 45-60 minutes per episode (8 episodes)
Release date: March 23rd 2023
Studio: Netflix
Format: 2.39:1
Series Directors: Seth Gordon, Millicent Shelton
Producers: Nick Bradley, James Dodson
Created for TV by: Shawn Ryan
Writers: Corey Deshon, Imogen Browder, Shawn Ryan, Tiffany Shaw Ho, Rachel Wolf, Seth Fisher
Novel: Matthew Quirk
Music: Robert Duncan
Cast:
Peter Sutherland: Gabriel Basso
Rose Larkin: Luciane Buchanan
Chief of Staff Diane Farr: Hong Chau
Deputy Director Jamie Hawkins: Robert Patrick
Chelsea Arrington: Fola Evans-Akingbola
Maddie Redfield: Sarah Desjardins
Ellen: Eve Harlow
Dale: Phoenix Raei
Ben Almora: Enrique Murciano
Erik Monks: DB Woodside
Matteo: Andre Anthony
Nathan Briggs: Toby Levins
Valerie: Jessie Liang
David Cullen: Philip Prajoux
Jeff Richards: Andres Collantes
Alternate Night Agent: Allan Luna
Liam: Alex Rose
Emma: Simone Kessell
Henry: William MacDonald
Cisco Jenkins: Curtis Lum
Omar Zadar: Adam Tsekhman
Abby: Sarah Peguero
Elliot Rome: Richard Harmon
5-Year-Old Daughter: Remy Marthaller
Harper: Paolina van Kleef
Mark Hale: Ronald Patrick Thompson
Secret Service Agent Eli Sommers: Todd Matthews
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.