Nowadays, it seems like more and more acclaimed film stars are jumping ship to the world of streaming. Just take a look at the cast of Netflix’s new political-thriller limited series “Zero Day”: Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Angela Bassett, Lizzy Caplan and Joan Allen, just to name a few. With 15 Academy Award nominations between the bunch, these heavy hitters are certainly no strangers to the industry. Yet, for many of them, “Zero Day” is a first stab at a made-for-streaming miniseries. Whether such a foray is motivated by a quick buck or genuine interest in the project is hard to discern, but given the final product, it’s clear that working on the sloppy, bland and pseudo-profound “Zero Day” isn’t one of the best career choices these actors have made.
“Zero Day” takes place in the wake of a devastating cyberattack in the United States that kills thousands. In response, the fictional President Evelyn Mitchell (Bassett) appoints former president George Mullen (De Niro) as head of an investigatory commission. Alongside his wife, appellate court hopeful Sheila (Allen), and his body man Roger (Plemons), the aging Mullen works to find and bring those responsible for the attack to justice. But it’s not long before he finds himself under fire from all angles — a hostile speaker of the house (Matthew Modine), a belligerent political commentator (Dan Stevens), and his own daughter, New York Congresswoman Alex Mullen (Caplan) all criticize his leadership.
Unfortunately, not a single one of these actors is operating at the top of their game. De Niro, the series’ protagonist, has a nice, grounding presence — but that’s more so because he’s Robert De Niro, rather than anything unique or nuanced about his performance. Bassett attempts to be commanding, but her delivery is so stilted and unnatural that it feels like she’s reading off a teleprompter half the time. Almost everyone else is delivering either flat or comically exaggerated performances, with no in between. With that being said, Plemons and Caplan are certainly the best of the bunch, even if the weak script and laughable dialogue don’t give them much to work with.
The writing of “Zero Day” is particularly lacking. Yes, it serves its purpose as a sufficiently entertaining miniseries, but it’s not truly enticing. Instead, I felt it was so stupid I had to see where it was going. Characters speak in plot points and exposition, and when they don’t, they’re spewing the most vanilla moral assertions imaginable about truth, justice and what it means to be a real American. With its elementary depiction of government and its baseline understanding of American politics, the show feels like it was written by someone who just completed their first high school civics class.
It’s no secret that “Zero Day” is attempting to reflect our current political landscape. A former president in cognitive decline thrusted back into power, a black female president and a plague of legislative gridlock are all concepts not too far from our reality. And yet, the greatest fault of “Zero Day” is that it’s too afraid to piss anyone off. So instead, it says nothing at all. Despite being classified as a political thriller series, the words “Republican” and “Democrat” are not uttered a single time. Characters vaguely allude to partisanship but nothing about their distinct political opinions is ever revealed — only their distaste for one another. This cowardly approach was undoubtedly taken so as not to alienate any potential viewers, but the true effect is that nothing of value is said. “Zero Day” is bland in every sense of the word.
The ethical conversation surrounding an investigatory commission like the one Mullen leads is admittedly an interesting one to have. How much authority should the commission be afforded? Is it okay to forgo civil liberties if the end goal is our collective safety? These questions are intriguing, but the show wastes so much time on pulpy subplots and repeated montages of Mullen’s hallucinations that they’re never really answered. Nothing Mullen and his team achieve has any bearing on the finale’s big reveal, leaving the final episode to feel entirely divorced from everything that came before it. In fact, nothing in this show feels naturally developed.
Ultimately, “Zero Day” is a true disappointment. At times like these, a taut examination of our current political systems in the form of a thriller series could have been just what we needed. Unfortunately, what we got was a The CW-level production that wasted a cast of talented actors and delivered the most uninspired messaging conceivable. It’s funny to think that a show like “Zero Day” is what actors like De Niro and Plemons spend their time on in between working on films with Martin Scorsese and Yorgos Lanthimos. But alas, everyone’s got to pay the bills somehow. Unless you’re a diehard fan of the cast, you can go ahead and skip this one.
Contact Leo Field at [email protected].