‘Monsieur Spade’ Review: Clive Owen Headlines Smart, Accomplished Update Of Classic Character

To some, it may seem blasphemous to go anywhere near new content that centers Sam Spade. Who would dare pick up the pen of Dashiell Hammett or step into the shoes of Humphrey Bogart? Luckily, the pedigree behind AMC’s excellent “Monsieur Spade” is one of the highest in years. Co-created by Scott Frank and Tom Fontana, and executive produced by Barry Levinson, this brightly-lit noir is one of the best recent TV originals, a smart, sexy, deeply philosophical piece of storytelling that values things like dialogue, character, and theme over the high concepts that have defined so much TV in the 2020s. Even without the connection to a classic character, this would be great TV. The nice thing is how much the echoes of Bogey only add flavor instead of being the whole meal. There’s plenty of other stuff to chew on.

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Clive Owen gives one of his career-best performances as an aging Sam Spade in 1963, retired to the South of France after falling for a woman he met there named Gabrielle (Chiara Mastroianni). Sadly, she died before the story really picks up, crafting a Spade that’s deeply aware of mortality. Not only has he lost the love of his life, his smoking habit has caught up with his lungs, leaving him only a few cases left to solve in all likelihood. He’d love to just sit on the estate his wife left him and enjoy his final days, but everything changes when he hears that an old adversary named Philippe Saint Andre (Jonathan Zaccai) has resurfaced in the seemingly peaceful town of Bozouls.

What first feels like it will be a battle of wills involving an old enemy, Spade, and a girl he’s been protecting named Teresa (Cara Bossom) becomes something else entirely at the disturbing end of the first episode. (To that end, “Monsieur Spade” is wonderfully structured like a serial with a new cliffhanger/revelation at the end of each chapter.) An entire convent of six nuns is murdered, setting in motion a mystery that will involve Saint Andre, the Algerian War, locals with secrets, a cynical Chief of Police (an excellent Denis Menochet), some suspicious neighbors (Matthew Beard and Rebecca Root), and even a child who might be magical. The question of who has the child and why becomes the MacGuffin of “Monsieur Spade,” pushing Spade into various conflicts and revelations over six sharply written episodes.

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That’s the main thing that elevates “Monsieur Spade” from its very first few scenes: The sense that it’s been crafted be people who aren’t merely copying Hammett but writing their own witty dialogue that balances pushing the plot forward, deepening the characters, and entertaining with that expected Spade dry wit. Scott Frank, the writer of “The Queen’s Gambit,” “Godless,” and “Out of Sight,” is quite simple one of the best screenwriters working today, and he’s partnering here with the man behind “Oz,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “City on the Hill,” and many more. They’re legends, and they affirm that legendary status with dozens of well-crafted scenes. “Monsieur Spade” is a dialogue-heavy show, and one of its many strengths is how much it refuses to talk down to a TV audience. There’s something so enjoyable about simply spending time with smart, adult characters.

What Frank and Fontana do here is complex when it comes to its flashback-heavy plotting (and there’s arguably a twist or two too many), but even more so in terms of character and theme. Frank and Fontana never spell things out, allowing issues of responsibility, age, trauma, and betrayal to weave through the plotting instead of being grafted onto it. “Monsieur Spade” is about many things, but one of its more subtle driving thematic forces is change: The change of aging in Spade countered against the change of adolescence in Teresa; the changing face of a country (and the world really) in the ‘60s; the changing belief system of someone who is still grieving. It’s all so rich without ever being heavy-handed, like great literary fiction in TV mini-series form.

Of course, none of it works without Owen’s excellent acting, a reminder of how good he can be with challenging material. He smartly never leans into the tough-talking archetype that might have drawn Bogey comparisons, making his own version of an older Spade, still the smartest guy in the room but also a bit softened by grief and responsibility. It’s an emotional, dense performance that also comes to life in the numerous witty retorts that one expects from a character like Spade.

“Monsieur Spade” is about people who live with ghosts. It’s set in a city that was occupied by the Nazis recently and in the shadow of the Algerian War. It’s about a boy who some think portends the end of days, while others think offers hope for the future. Frank, Fontana, and Owen have found a way to take one of the most well-known characters in noir history and place him at a new kind of crossroads, one that we will all someday reach at the end of life. In an era in which it feels like rebooting IP can be such a cold, cynical, cash-grabbing process, there’s never even a whiff that this was done out of anything but creative passion.

“Monsieur Spade” ends in a way that’s deeply satisfying for a 6-episode mini-series, but leaves the door open for Spade to return. If AMC and Frank/Fontana choose to bring him back, they have set a high bar for season two. [A-]

“Monsieur Spade” debuts on January 14 on AMC.