The spy thriller is one of my favorite genres but there are so many of them these days it’s hard to keep up with them all. This one stands out from the pack given Amazon’s huge marketing budget (you can’t escape seeing an ad for it everywhere), plus it’s executive produced by the Russo brothers. So far their work has been a hit and miss for me–Captain America: The Winter Soldier is my fave MCU movie but their big-budget Netflix movie The Gray Man was disappointing. This time the Russos get even more ambitious, attempting global domination for Amazon with their own ‘spy multiverse’ as it were, with this US version launching interconnected spin-off shows in India, Italy, Spain, and Mexico featuring the respective country’s own talents and language.
The series itself is created by Josh Appelbaum, Bryan Oh, and David Weil, starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden as Citadel super agents Nadia Sinh and Mason Kane. Former Miss World Chopra and Madden, with his glass-cutting cheekbones, are supermodel-level gorgeous a la Mr & Mrs. Smith. Neither are exactly action stars yet, though Chopra was in ABC’s Quantico and Madden was in the BBC’s Bodyguard series.
The showrunners borrow elements from popular spy movies from Bond to Bourne, though this one is more in the vein of the former (especially the Pierce Brosnan era), with a more fantastical bent that I knew I had to crank my level suspension of disbelief up sky high. I mean, within a half hour the two spies, all decked out in glamorous attire, miraculously survived an explosion inside a speeding train in the Alps with mere scratches while the rest of the passengers perish (naturally!) We’re then treated to a violent and bloody fight scene between Nadia and a big brutish mountain-man type who chained her to a bed. So yeah, Nadia is able to overpower a guy twice her size while still pretty badly injured. Again, it’s all pretty far-fetched that had my hubby and I giggling and hollering. It’s as if the Russos were still operating in the world of superheroes as these supposedly regular humans have superhuman abilities.
I have to say the first two episodes are so absurd that I almost gave up watching the series altogether. I did take a break for a couple of weeks before picking up on episode 3. Since there are only six episodes, I decided to finish the entire season. Thankfully, there are two seasoned actors that add gravitas to the series: Stanley Tucci as a tech expert Bernard Orlick, who seems to be all-knowing, and Lesley Manville as Dahlia Archer, a cunning and ruthless UK ambassador to the US.
Tucci is tasked with giving exposition about the plot, as Bernard explains early on that Citadel ‘helped shape every major event for good in the last 100 years’ while its rival agency Manticore’s primary mission is to serve their powerful clients made up of the wealthiest of the world. These two arch nemesis get paired up often and it’s pretty fun watching them banter each other even when what they’re saying makes little sense. Manville clearly revels in playing a villainess as she happily hams it up as she delivers one vicious order after another to her minions.
As in The Gray Man, star power is meaningless without a compelling script devoid of intrigue and suspense. Citadel doubles down on the trivial spy stuff: we’ve got amnesiac agents, fake families, and hi-tech gadgetry, including chip implants designed as memory-wiping ‘failsafe’ to protect the agency. That show employs extensive flashbacks in nearly every episode as layer upon layer of secrets get revealed, it was tricky at times to figure out when a scene actually takes place. The classic thriller trope of ‘nothing is what it seems’ is so on the nose, with the repetitive upside-down camerawork serving almost as a clue that we can’t rely on what a character might say or do.
Now, Amazon clearly has money to burn so it’s no surprise that after spending nearly a billion dollars for the LOTR: The Rings of Power series, the streamer then invested $300 million for the six-episode of Citadel’s first season. It ranks as one of the most expensive television shows to produce, though, unlike The Rings of Power, Citadel somehow doesn’t look as lavish as one would expect. The glossy, oversaturated visuals are far from jaw-dropping, and the production design or set pieces don’t really stand out from so many other thrillers out there. By now, globe-trotting thrillers aren’t a novelty anymore with lesser-budgeted projects showcasing similarly exotic locations, high-octane action, and copious CGI.
Even with all the flaws, the show is still pretty watchable once you dial your expectations waaaay down. When it doesn’t take itself too seriously, it can be a silly good fun show, the kind you can leisurely watch without getting too much invested emotionally. There’s the eye-candy factor with the two leads. Chopra and Madden have a pretty sizzling chemistry, no doubt they’ve gone through an extensive screen test together. I’m actually pretty impressed with Chopra here that somehow I buy her as a seductive and deadly super spy. Her casting is clearly crucial for the show’s global appeal and her nearly 88 million Instagram followers can attest to that.
Should you watch it? It depends. If you’re a fan of the spy genre, this one might still be worth your time, though if you prefer a more character-driven and thematically rich espionage thriller, I’d definitely go with Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (also on Amazon). In its first season, Citadel is more style over substance bogged down by clunky exposition, so the writing is the most lackluster area of the show. I know that season 2 has been green-lit, thus the final episode ends in a cliffhanger. Not sure yet if I’ll tune in for more Citadel or if I’d remember anything about it even weeks from now. One thing for sure, Amazon ought to invest in better writers or for the current showrunners to up their game going forward.
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Yeah, I’ve heard lukewarm things about show. It seems like everything the Russo Brothers have done post-MCU hasn’t been really good as I saw a bit of The Gray Man and I couldn’t get past a minute as it was so hyperactive as it almost made me dizzy.
You’re right, the Russos haven’t impressed me post-MCU. The Gray Man is just awful, I just couldn’t believe how dumb it was.
And the film is getting a sequel. Why? Netflix really needs to re-think about the kind of films they make as I have no interest in that or anything involving the Crock and Ryan Reynolds in their own projects from Netflix.
Oh geez, I totally forgot about that. I mean, I knew about it but I think I just pretend that’s not happening
I just finished the 6th episode a few hours ago and I pretty much agreed with your review here. In fact, I HATED the flashback scenes! This is a trend I’m seeing on too many shows on streaming services and it needs to stop. If you’re going to tell a story, there’s no need to constantly going back and tell the audience what lead point A to point B, it’s so annoying. Okay rant over, lol!
I also have some doubts about the reported massive budget, the show looked way too cheap and while I enjoyed the more graphic violent action scenes, they relied way too much on CGI on the bigger scale set pieces. I’m wondering if that budget was the result of reshoots. I read somewhere that Amazon executives weren’t happy with first version of the show and they ordered reshoots on many of the episodes.
I don’t hate flashback scenes per se, but here it was just overused and not used well. I’m watching SILO and the way they introduced the younger version of the character feels seamless.
Yeah, I was scratching my head looking at the bad CGI given the reported massive budget. But like you said, maybe those went to the reshoots which could be very costly!
Maybe one day instead of wasting millions on films about grey men in citadels someone intelligent in the film industry could make a riveting film based on the life and times of Vadim Bakatin (last KGB Chairman). He has to be one of the greatest spy masters in espionage history. Mind you, no films have been made about many other fascinating spy masters or their top agents. For example, Bill Fairclough (ex-spook, MI6 codename JJ and one of Pemberton’s People in MI6) led an extraordinary life as depicted in Beyond Enkription, the first fact based spy thriller in The Burlington Files series which he nominally wrote. It’s just the stuff classic espionage films should be made of and just like Ian Fleming’s “Trout Memo” it is a must read for all espionage illuminati.
If as espionage illuminati we are going to discuss the history of intelligence in the Cold War let’s not overlook that which even espionage connoisseurs have little idea about. Namely, the extent the Soviets cooperated with the West in the Cold War. Vadim Bakatin was one of the architects of this co-operation. The KGB and Western agencies frequently collaborated when combatting global crime syndicates involved in certain heinous crimes such as smuggling body parts under the cover of normal human trafficking. An interesting take on this oft forgotten aspect of the Cold War is still visible in the preserved website of a niche global intelligence agency, FaireSansDire, based in the UK from 1978 and now supposedly shut or dormant: see The History of Faire Sans Dire in “About Us” on The Burlington Files website.
A series of novels based on the activities of FaireSansDire’s founders are also worth a peep if you were unaware that MI6 and the CIA combined with the KGB to combat criminals in these extreme law enforcement areas. For legal reasons only one novel (Beyond Enkription) has been published in that series called The Burlington Files. It makes for a compelling read and their website claims most read it two or more times which I believe and did!
The larger than life characters who met in MI6 in the early seventies and later established FaireSansDire were Bill Fairclough (a not so boring accountant, MI6 codename JJ), Colonel Alan Brooke Pemberton CVO MBE and Barrie Parkes BEM all of whose fascinating backgrounds are easily accessed on the web. Pemberton’s People in MI6 even included Roy Astley Richards OBE (Winston Churchill’s bodyguard) and an eccentric British Brigadier (Peter ‘Scrubber’ Stewart-Richardson) who was once refused permission to join the Afghan Mujahideen. For more beguiling anecdotes best read a brief and intriguing News Article about Pemberton’s People in MI6 dated 31 October 2022 in TheBurlingtonFiles website and then read Beyond Enkription.
You can find the articles at https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2021.09.26.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.
#SlávaUkrayíni #BritishIntelligence #CIA #Espionage #FaireSansDire #FBI #FSB #BeyondEnkription #GCHQ #GRU #Intelligence #ArtificialIntelligence #KGB #MI5 #MI6 #NATO #NSA #SVR #TheBurlingtonFiles #BillFairclough #BetterThanBond #HarryPalmer
Hello Jim, thanks for your insightful comment! I hadn’t heard about Beyond Enkription but that sounds fascinating indeed. Obviously this lightweight, superficial spy series can’t hold a candle to the real espionage/intelligence history where the stakes are undoubtedly high.
Ruth – Agreed – TheBurlingtonFiles is worth a peep because conceptually it is so “sui generis” and such a fresh approach to a new series of novels. Hopefully quality films will follow one day. As a first by a non-pro Beyond Enkription leaves you wanting the next volume but it is all so real that they have been prevented from releasing it by a combo of security reasons and secrecy laws! Best wishes – Jim
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