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It’s been a protracted time since Robert De Niro stopped saying no to bad parts. But while the star has appeared in lots of sorts of film, from The Godfather Part II to Dirty Grandpa, the 81-year-old has largely resisted the decision of the small screen.
So a number one TV role for one among our best living actors should feel like a big occasion. Yet Zero Day is fairly standard Netflix fare. The six-part series follows the immediate aftermath of a deadly cyber attack on the US. The disaster is uncomfortably plausible however the show is more guided by the conventions of political thrillers than the present political landscape. Those in search of one other slick drama set within the corridors of power will likely be sated; those hoping for a more rigorous interrogation of how that power is likely to be used and abused in today’s America will find it lacking potency.
De Niro commits to his role, bringing the requisite solemnity to an ex-president who returns to serve his country in a moment of crisis. Having stood down from office after one term following a family bereavement, George Mullen is busy together with his memoirs when a minute-long tech outage wreaks havoc across America. Hundreds are killed in horrific accidents; the remainder of the nation is left on edge by an ominous message sent to each phone warning: “this can occur again”.
Faced with an unknown threat and a tide of public panic, the incumbent president Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett) turns to a trusted, upstanding figure and asks Mullen to move up a “special investigatory commission” to discover those responsible. As its chief, he could be granted unprecedented licence to surveil, arrest and interrogate residents. His wife Sheila (Joan Allen), a judge, calls the committee “the only biggest affront to civil liberties” in history. His daughter Alexandra (Lizzy Caplan), a headstrong congresswoman, deems it “fascist”. For Mullen, nonetheless, it’s a matter of duty.
What follows is a twisting search that leads Mullen to query his convictions, doubt his judgments and eventually abdicate his moral principles. While he considers whether to strip the rights of individual Americans within the name of broader US security, his aide Roger (Jesse Plemons) is blackmailed by shady characters who seek to undermine the commission.
The show builds intrigue and suspense but keeps things wilfully vague. Fears about Russian interference, CIA over-reach, “hacktivism”, market manipulation and conspiracy media all appear within the story yet there may be little specificity in how these themes are broached. And when real contexts are addressed it is usually done clunkily, with lines similar to “Remember Iraq?”
A starchy script that finds little space for naturalism or wit doesn’t all the time play to the strengths of a stellar ensemble. De Niro, nonetheless, transcends the writing with a quietly internalised yet commanding performance. The rookie might just make a reputation for himself in TV yet.
★★★☆☆
On Netflix now
