‘Liaison’: The New Thriller That Criminally Wastes Cinema’s Sexiest Stars
Liaison is headlined by two of international cinema’s sexiest actors, Vincent Cassel and Eva Green, so the wholesale limpness of Virginie Brac’s six-part Apple TV+ series borders on the criminal.
That the leads are given zero chances to steam up the screen—this despite playing former lovers reunited amidst a European calamity—is nothing short of baffling, although squandering opportunities is the name of this affair’s tiresome game. Designed to hit the same international-intrigue sweet spot as Fauda and Tehran, it goes through the generic geopolitical motions with the sort of mundane, measured proficiency that’s apt to excite few—and put many to sleep.
As with last year’s The Undeclared War, Liaison (which premieres Feb. 24) hinges on cybersecurity fears, its story propelled by a sequence of hacking attacks against multiple facets of Britain’s core infrastructure. This greatly concerns British National Cyber Security Centre minister Richard Banks (Peter Mullan) and his assistant Alison Rowdy (Green), if not the man in charge of keeping the country safe from such electronic assaults, Mark Bolton (Patrick Kennedy), who wants to dismiss them as the handiwork of troublemaking pests rather than treat them as grave threats to the country’s safety and stability. Once the water, power grid, and air transportation systems are targeted, suggesting that a foreign enemy wants to bring England to its knees, much urgent handwringing ensues.