Vincent Cassel, Eva Green Waste Time on Dull Spycraft in Apple TV+'s Liaison | TV/Streaming
Much like Peacock’s “The Undeclared War” (another cyber-bore from late last year), “Liaison” concerns the rising threat of cyberattacks on English soil, spurred on by the self-inflicted wound of Brexit—rampant vulnerabilities absent the promise of collective EU protection. A “test balloon” hack on England’s Cybersecurity Division leaves surly director Richard Banks (Peter Mullan) shaken. His associate Alison Rowdy (Green) agrees, and the two begin investigating as more and more cyberattacks lead to train derailments and flooding from the Thames.
Meanwhile, in Damascus, French military contractor Gabriel Delage (Cassel) is tasked with protecting a pair of Syrian white-hat hackers and the information they’ve unveiled about the hacks. Things go poorly, as predicted, and Gabriel ends up back in London to track them down again—ending right back in Alison’s orbit. You see, a lifetime ago, they were lovers in an anti-war activist group. Everything went to pot during a particularly flammable street protest, and the two parted ways. Now, they’ve got to work together to save themselves, the hackers, and, it seems, the world.
If “Liaison” got to this point earlier, with Green and Cassel glowering at each other with white-hot erotic heat as they dug barbs out of their scarred backs or made out while gunfire raged around them, it could have been quite the pulpy ride. Unfortunately, Brac’s expanded scope involves reams of scenes in conference rooms, offices, and hideouts, with an expanding cast of unremarkable character actors playing nondescript government flacks and corporate spies.
They all have overlapping motivations and allegiances, fighting for their slice of the hack-attack pie. It’s all so dull, and it goes on for far too long. (Even stalwarts like Kieslowski regular Irène Jacob get lost in all the boring bureaucracy.) You’ve got to sit through two solid episodes of drudgery before Cassel and Green finally reunite, staring longingly at each other through opposite sides of a rainy window, and by then, it’s too little, too late.
