“Implausible” is the word that springs to mind with The Assassin. This is frustrating, because so much of the production is absolutely plausible – to the extent that, while watching it, I actually felt like I was on set and part of the action, of which there is plenty. Like anything made by brothers Harry and Jack Williams (The Missing, The Tourist), this Prime Video thriller has care and high production values built into it. There are the exquisite Riviera villas, the shabby Paris apartments, the dusty hills of Albania and the easy-going Greek tavernas, all of which lend a wonderful texture to proceedings. Everything moves at a brisk pace, and the body count is high.
Much of this taut quality is down to the presence of the now ubiquitous Keely Hawes, the entertainment industry’s undeclared Queen of Tense. She is ideally cast, then, as Julie Green, a semi-retired professional assassin (well, amateurs don’t last long in that game presumably), trying to keep herself to herself on an idyllic Greek island – but permanently on edge for fear of retribution. She can’t be blamed for wanting a quiet life after knocking off so many gangsters, politicians and oligarchs in her time. She’s made enough money to pack it in, which is just as well because hired killers don’t usually bother with an Aviva pension plan. “Ex-headhunter” is her amusing self-description if anyone asks; a “premenopausal James Bond” as someone calls her.
