The United States has fallen victim to a devastating cyber attack, leaving thousands dead and a nation ripe with questions. With the future of the country in undeniably dire straits, it’s now up to former president George Mullen (Robert De Niro), hand-picked by current President Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett), to lead a newly-formed task force charged with finding those responsible and the reasons why. The premise of “Blackhat 2,” perhaps? Another by-the-numbers political thriller? In the case of the six episodes comprising the latest take on the genre, courtesy of Netflix, “Zero Day” is precisely the latter, and no amount of well-placed twists or acting finesse on either side of the quality scale can elevate it in any meaningful way.
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Every day for George Mullen seems to start the same. An alarm awakens the former Commander-in-chief as he steps into the bathroom for his typical morning round of prescription medication, followed by a few laps in the pool and a jog around the neighborhood with his dog in tow. Maybe the day will see Mullen taking a few swings of the golf club. Still, this particular day happens to be the one when the country will find itself hit by a Zero Day event, an attack designed to target vulnerabilities in computer systems and which quickly wreaks particular havoc on mass transportation. Train reroutes lead to catastrophic traffic accidents, airplanes flying blind, and the shutdown of medical equipment; this surface has barely been scratched, and all are accompanied by a single, cryptic message displayed on cell phones, “THIS WILL HAPPEN AGAIN.”
With answers in demand, Mullen’s appointment as head of the Zero Day Commission finds itself met with a decidedly mixed response, with criticism stemming largely from widespread doubt that he possesses the ability to pull off a win; Mullen, as we soon come to learn, retired from office voluntarily, and any chance Speaker of the House Richard Dreyer (Matthew Modine) or radical television journalist Evan Green (Dan Stevens) have to point out what they believe to be the former president’s laundry list of shortcomings, they’ll waste no time to seize it. Mullen’s old school, relying on the precedents set by previous administrations to serve as guidance in his decision-making, but his first primary task as commission head goes over as well as a lead balloon, as Mitchell orders Mullen to round up anyone suspected to hold ties to the real culprits. Could those pesky Russians, the cinematic crutch of classic villainy, be the ones pulling the strings? A server farm in the Bronx might have answers, mainly when everyone on the premises is found dead, execution-style, and a subsequent visit to CIA headquarters leaves Mullen rattled for reasons as yet unknown.
It turns out that the GRU has been funneling money into a group of hackers, and the money gets kicked back to the Russian consulate. Still, the phrase “domestic terrorism” begins to arise as the big questions remain unresolved. There’s also the matter of the Reapers, a mysterious group of cyber activists some believe may not even exist and, thus, serve as a misdirection in Mullen’s game of round-up. How fun!
Meanwhile, Mullen’s right-hand man Roger Carlson (Jesse Plemons) might have his own secrets in the form of a relationship with the Epstein-esque Robert Lyndon (Clark Gregg), who shorted the market immediately before the attack.
It doesn’t help that Mullen’s own daughter, Alexandra (Lizzy Caplan), now a congresswoman overloaded with opinions, maneuvers her way into the position of essentially looking over her own father’s shoulder. Surely someone in such a situation wouldn’t attempt a clandestine, friends-with-benefits romp with someone on Mullen’s staff…would they? Speaking of that, Mullen’s wife Sheila (Joan Allen) has taken it upon herself to recruit his trusted former Chief of Staff Valerie Whitesell (Connie Britton) to join Zero Day as well, much to Roger’s chagrin; there’s clear history between the two. What good show doesn’t have its share of interpersonal drama?
What it also seems to possess is a keen, almost eerie ability to reflect the presidential drama of the past year; at the end of Episode One, Mullen’s faculties might be reaching a Biden level of degradation, as he’s mistaken his longtime assistant for someone that left his employ years earlier, and a notebook he finds while rifling through his desk in a frenzy appears scribbled with repeated phrases that would make Jack Torrance proud, while a social media mogul with more than a few shades of Zuckerberg (Gaby Hoffmann) publicly states her intention to assist the current president…sound familiar? Mullen initially suspects his medication to be the cause of his struggles. Still, something greater might be at work, all leading to some last-minute revelations at the end of Episode Two and throughout Episode Three that point towards a secret Mullen may have always known and might be at the center of it all.
Has the solution been found? From the dense realm of storytelling, does it matter? It’s a political thriller, and rarely has the genre found showrunners or filmmakers able to reinvent that specific wheel in a manner that feels fresh, with “Zero Day” another behind the back, mysterious joyride flowing with tropes and cast members teetering between those who work hard and those who see fit to phone it in. Fortunately, De Niro does not encompass the latter, unlike the ordinarily reliable Plemons, with whom he shares likely the most screentime. It’s difficult not to see this opponent of all things Republican pour even the tiniest bit of himself into George Mullen or take a cue from any over-the-top show of defiance he’s expressed with regards to a certain President when Mullen addresses a crowd of protestors on the streets of New York City, resulting in a speech that even draws applause. It’s unnecessarily theatrical, much like Dan Stevens as Evan Green, who does appear to enjoy every second he inhabits his role with a characterization bordering on quick-draw sarcasm or full-blown mania at any given moment. Seeing him on the verge of a mental snap is something to behold; all credit goes to Stevens.
And yet, “Zero Day” ultimately lacks any defining elements that could render it, at minimum, a memorable six-episode experience. However, the energy and momentum never lag to the point that switching over to anything else feels needed. In this day and age, when disaster seems more and more commonplace, and society appears to exist simply within that space between mass tragedy, it’s become difficult to label shows such as this fiction, yet this is precisely what it is, with countless forerunners having done it better and more to follow just the same. [B-]
“Zero Day” is streaming now on Netflix.
